


What happens now

by HolidayRose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Artists, Blood, Celebrities, Cutting, Depression, Multi, Musicians, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolidayRose/pseuds/HolidayRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat is an uninspired and depressed author and artist. Dave is a ambitious musician making it big with the wrong songs.</p>
<p>What will happen when they come together? will they fit together like puzzle pieces or will there worlds come crashing down?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beautiful maddness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning the beginning (this chapter) is pretty dark, don't worry it gets happy I promise <3

Karkat was only 20 when he finished his degree in fine arts and communications. Now at 21, he lives in a spacey apartment. He can afford it easily, many of his romance novels and works of art have become moderately popular. Most adults his age consider him to be lucky and fortunate, Karkat doesn't understand that though. The only solace he finds in his day to day, average, and boring life is his art now. His arm lay in front of him over a large ceramic bowl, a fresh razor blade in his right hand and 2 spares to his side. He drags the razor across mocha skin, splitting the soft tissue with ease. The blood immediately started to puddle on the long drag across his wrist and soon just as Karkat planned the red slipped down his arm and into the bowl. A smile nearly graced the black haired boys lips, he loved this, it was the only time he thought he was using himself correctly. After 6 more slits the bowl now was thinly filled, barely a quarter of an inch but it would be perfect.

Cleaning the wounds, Karkat carefully bandaged his arm and grabbed a 16x10' canvas placing it by the setup he had placed by the bowl. Cautiously, he began the use his own blood to smear the canvas, creating a tragic scene of a faceless man kneeling by a faceless girl whom had a hole in her heart. The boy stepped back and looked at his work hours later, it pleased him that his gross being could make something so tragically beautiful. Karkat wouldn't sell these paintings, instead he would keep them in a closet in the back of his apartment. Many times, when he felt himself feeling as if there was no use for his presence he would go to he closet and survey the paintings, every few weeks he would go back there and wonder if he was still able to make beauty, so he would paint yet another.

When the bowl had been cleaned and put away with the new work, Karkat hurried into his study room to meet the deadline that had been set by his editors. His novels were not nearly as tragic as his paintings. The steamy romance he created was more so poetic then tragic. He himself loved reading a book and feeling every bit of the characters troubles, joys, pains, and excitements in his own heart, so he tried his hardest to come through to that in his own novels. His books had ups and downs (more downs than ups admittedly) but almost always ended with the main character at least somewhat fulfilled.

Feferi, his far too perky editor, now said it was about time for a happy and fun book about a young loving couple. She set complete guidelines saying that the following must happen in the new novel,

1\. there is to be no death or violence what so ever

2\. The two must have unique and fun personas

3\. They must have lots of fun together for a while

4\. a hill they have to climb to be happy with each other must come along

5\. they live happily ever fucking after

His editor wasn't exactly good at making story lines, just at making certain things about it better. Karkat frowned to himself thinking about having to accomplish this. She was asking him to do something completely out of his league. Never having been in a relationship that was remotely as good as that, Karkat had no idea what to write. He couldn't write about a one sided love affair or some other kind of shit, according to Feferi that's just " sad and tragic " He agreed with the assessment, but had argued multiple times that it was because of those reasons, the writing was beautiful.

His computer screen flickered to life as Karkat sat down, his writing documents were already on his screen. The boy angrily ran a hand through his nest of hair, he hadn't bothered combing it the last few days. Rarely had he even left the apartment in the last few weeks. His sleep was concerning, running off 2 hours of sleep and 5 cups of coffee couldn't be healthy but, it got the job done just fine. What Karkat really needed was some first fucking hand experience in this kind of romantic situation. He had been in some relationships but none had been to healthy for him. He remembered Terezi Pyrope, whom he loved more then anything and thought that she felt the same way. Too stuck in his lovey dovey world he hadn't realized she didn't take the relationship seriously at all, and ended up dumping him for some douche in another college. A buzz took him off his current occupation of staring at the computer screen with an intensity that could kill.

He picked up his phone, still irritated from the lack of ideas for his manuscript . God he wished he could just throw the main character off a cliff right about now, of course if he did that Eridan (another one of his stupid editors) would throw him off a cliff. Karkat turned on and unlocked his phone reading the new text from Feferi.

CuttlefishCuller started pestering you.

CC: Karkat I know you're probably still up. You s)(ould get some sleep for t)(e meet and greet tomorrow! 38)

Oh fuck there was a meet and greet. Karkat hated those stupid things, they were just for the tabloids or to "meet fellow artists" all such bullshit of course both Feferi and Eridan pushed him to go so he could gain more awareness, as if he didn't have enough to make paparazzi follow his every move . If those stupid editors weren't so fucking persistent he wouldn't go period.

CG: WHY IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK MUST I GO TO A SHITTY PLACE TO MAKE AWKWARD SMALL TALK WITH OTHER FUCK FACES?

CC: We've )(ad this conversation before come on it won't be t)(at bad you don't even )(ave to stay for long! glub

CG: UGH FINE WHAT THE FUCK EVER I'M STAYING FOR 2 HOURS TOPS AND YOU WILL HAVE COFFEE READY FOR ME. I CAN'T PROMISE THAT IF A SHIT EATING PAPARAZZI TRYS TO TAKE A PICTURE OF ME HIS CAMERA WON'T BE SHOVED UP HIS ASS.

CC: Okay! I'll be at your apartment by --Eig)(t!!! 38D

Exhausted and irritated, Karkat closed his laptop, trudging out of his study. On the way to his bedroom he opened the door to his art closet and quickly looked at how the painting had dried. the deeper red accented it more. The boy counted it as a success, walking out down the hall and falling into bed. Tomorrow would be long he could feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please put in any constructive criticism or alert me of mistakes, keep reading plez :3 <3


	2. Nicholas Cage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!! sorry I haven't gotten to this as quickly as I would've liked. It's here now though so yay! Better late than never!

Dave woke up to the unpleasantly elegant voice of Rose Lalonde. This wasn't the first time, hence why it was so fucking aggravating to him. Girl's voice was like a fucking alarm clock these days, an alarm clock that he wished he could change the soundtrack into some cool ass dubstep or rap. Then at least his wake up call was some what nice instead of waking up to a huge headache, which to say the least isn't fun when it's 7 IN THE FUCKING MORNING. Too early for this kind of shit.

"Dave get up, you have the meet and greet today. It is a very big honor that you were invited, so act like it please." Lalonde stepped away from you and walked quickly to the foot of the boys bed and started to go through his dresser.

"Ugh, if you're going through my dresser that means its serious. Do I have to wear a suit? Cause if I do, there is no way I'm allowing you to schedule any shit next weekend."

Fuck suits. They were fun at first and he even liked them quite a bit, but after to much time in one it was like eating the same cinnamon poptart for years on end, it starts delicious, then good, yummy, okay, boring, and then finally get me a fucking breakfast sandwich already. Dave fully intended to wear suits as sparingly as possible.

"No, I won't force you into a suit since you are so against it. I will make you presentable though. Get up and clean yourself off now before I bathe you myself." Rose never once looked up from the drawer she was currently sorting through, That was good, it meant Dave had about 20 seconds before his cousin acted on her threat. The platinum haired boy jumped up, grabbed his shades, and absconded the fuck out and into the bathroom like his life depended on it. He tended to act like his life was at stake when it came to Lalonde. Mostly because half the time it was.

Sighing Dave stripped down and hopped into the shower. Jesus fuck hot water was a beautiful gift, his life without the entity would be incomplete and cold. Scrubbing at himself thoroughly his mind wandered and eventually landed itself on the meet and greet he was supposed to attend. From what Rose had told him, only the top voted 100 celebrities and artists were invited to come. 25 musicians, 25 actors, 25 singers, and 25 authors, Dave heard that some extra few people would get in due to the demand by public viewers. The boy was, of course, given an extra invitation though and one for his producer, this being why John and Rose would accompany him. So there would be well over 300 people not including the paparazzi and other journalist.

His pale hand reached toward the facet to turn off the water sorrowfully. Oh sweet hot water gods we thank thee for the bountiful blessing, H20. He turned off the water and hopped out of the shower grabbing a towel simultaneously. Dave wiped a hand across the mirror to clear the condensation then looking at himself in the mirror. Pale and freckled skin surrounded pure ruby eyes, a cute nose, and a perfect smile. After scrubbing his teeth, his pale hand grabbed the comb and a blow dry. 2 minutes later the platinum blonde hair was soft and silky once again. He knew that his cousin wanted him to look presentable, according to her "Justin Bieber hair" was not the way to go, so he gelled his hair back the way Rose liked it when he had to get dressed up.

Dave pounded on the bathroom door and shouted to his producer, " Rosey! I don't expect you to send me nude, even though I personally think that a little more Dave Strider for the public can't hurt anyone. Come on have you seen this hot bod?" He could basically feel the eye role from Lalonde on the other side of the door, the boys smirk only grew.

"No David I will not be sending you out with no clothes I'm afraid we cannot have that. The general public could use a little less of that, so eloquently put _hot bod."_

"Oh Rose you hurt me, my heart is freezing over because of how cold you are to me." He pronounced every word while imitating hurt, Lalonde only rolled her eyes and knocked on the bathroom door with an armful of clothing.

Dave opened the door and grabbed the clothes, turning around quickly and shutting the door again. The boy pulled on the clothing which consisted of Dark blue skinny's (Dave's personal favorites too, damn how did Lalonde do it), jeans, a short sleeved red V-neck, with grey flannel that was lined with red. Dave put his own touches to the outfit, pulling the sleeves of the flannel up to his elbows, putting a broken record necklace on, and finishing off with his signature shades.

The boy walked out of the bathroom finally looking at Rose who was dressed for a ball. She wore a low V-neck dress with no back, the straps that went around her neck was pure pink that eventually faded to black at the bottom with a slit up the side of her leg. Her short chin length blonde hair had a black headband in it, her makeup was perfect, knowing her, she would have used black lipstick if this event wasn't so "important and public".

"Presentable if I do say so myself, now lets get moving we don't want to keep John and the public waiting do we?" Her pink high heels clacked against the wood and her hair swished gently behind her as she walked towards the exit of Dave's home.

"And if we do want to keep the public waiting?" Dave challenged with a raised eyebrow.

"Well then wouldn't it be a pity if you were to miss John absolutely pissing himself when he sees Nicolas Cage."

"Holy shit no way in hell I'm missing that. How did Nicolas Cage even get invited? I thought only good actors were invited."

"I guess we'll find out when we get there won't we? All the more reason to hurry."

" Yea, Yea I'm going."

Dave and Rose walked out of his generously sized home to the chauffeur outside bickering and talking all the way. The boy prayed to the hot water lords that this meet and greet would be worth the early hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this fic mostly laid out, I just haven't had much motivation to do it. Comments and kudos are greeeeatly appreciated though.
> 
> anyone who understood amen to aH20 is immediately my best friend lolli.


	3. Damn clerks.

Karkat couldn't help but feel out of place as he walked toward the 40 story high hotel. The building itself didn't impress or intimidate him, it was the people inside that were the scary ones. They boy hadn't even met anyone inside or even spared a word to one of them, nor did he intend to. The only person he was going to try and tolerate this mourning were Feferi Peixes and Eridan Ampora, if that asshole even showed up. Okay probably not Eridan anyway. That fish dick could get a rake shoved up his as for all Karkat cared. Feferi placed a hand on Karkat's shoulder as he stepped out of the car, probably feeling his anxiety. Was he being that obvious? Maybe, but at the moment he couldn't really think straight due to the social anxiety swelling in his chest causing his fists to clench and his teeth to grit together.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. It'll only be a couple of hours then we'll be out. By the way how's that manuscript coming?" Thank the lord for Feferi, she might be pulling his attention from one unpleasant thing to another but she knew which one was good to focus on at different times.

"Fucking fabulous. Why do I even have to write this teen drama shit anyway, I would rather be fucked by a fork any day."

She frowned turning away and walking toward the hotel, the shorter boy followed catching up to her pace and damn if he didn't want longer legs right now. Feferi was only 5'4 but she was taller than Karkat by 2 inches making almost everyone he knew taller then him except Nepeta who was only an inch shorter and taller then Karkat when she wore heels. All the height business wasn't great for the boys self esteem either when most people refered to him as "shorty" or some other synonym.

"I don't reely know why you're having such trouble with this karkat, it's just a less sorrowful version of what you usually write." Feferi said furrowing her eye brows, it looked very odd on her face considering her high pitched and happy voice and generally joyful demeanor. The pale boy sighed exasperatedly

"No Fef, you do get it. I have experience with quote on quote sorrowful relationships, however, never have I been in a go happy fairy tale ending kind of relationship." He ran a hand through his soft dark hair. Usually he would find tangles that he would work on to ease his nerves, but today his editor had combed it to as near perfection as he had ever gotten his hair. It was still poofy and generally all over the place, at least Feferi had managed to part the front of his hair a bit to the side causing a piece hair to cover his left eye.

Peixes turned in front of Karkat and halted causing him to skid to a stop, "What the he-" he started

"Shush," She stepped in front of him starting to fiddle with his suit, the suit was gray and soft with a red tie. The boy didn't really mind suits as long as it wasn't tight as fuck, "This is it, we have to make sure you look pretty. After all you don't go to a lot of events so the public doesn't see you often. Cod who taught you how to tie a tie?"

"Nobody, I had to improvise, anyway there is a reason behind not going to these events. It's generally something to do with I don't want the whole fucking world to see my maggot shit of a face." The last part slipped out by accident, his self esteem level tended to interrupt his speech enough that it was mostly to be expected from him now days.

"First of all next time, don't improvise when getting dressed. Second of all how many times do I have to tell you that you're as cute as a cuttlefish!"

Now finished with his tie, Feferi moved on to tugging at different parts of the boy's suit. The taller girl of course didn't need to do anything to her own get up. She wore a long pink and green skirt, on the right side there was a slit that ran up to her upper thigh, where the lighter fabric parted there was thicker and tighter fabric underneath. Her top was a dark, hot pink that was blousy around where it tucked in. Her sleeves went out to her shoulders but not down her arms showing off her slim figure. Long brown hair draped down her back to her hips, there wasn't a hair out of place yet it still managed to have a natural and perfect wave. Some times Feferi annoyed him with her perfection.

"Yea, yea mom." Karkat said rolling his eyes. Feferi smiled, flashing her pearly whites. She turned toward a blue carpet and tugged on Karkat's arm.

"Show time Karkat!! Let's go!" For once he straightened his back. Nerves starting to heighten at the sight of the photographers down the carpet. It was early so not many were here just yet and others were just setting up there cameras, microphones, and lights. While the paparazzi were mild, the fans were not. Fans had already riled just outside the line of photographers, huge signs waving for there favorite celebrities, people showing off T-shirts that had there fandoms insignia on them, and other people had gone so far as to draw or spray paint things on there skin.

The small boy nervously stepped up next to Feferi matching her pace in hopes of making himself even smaller and unnoticeable. It worked. Very few cameras flashed as he walked towards the swinging glass doors. Still the walk was long and stressful. whispers, talking, and shouts flying through his ears. Karkat tried as hard as he could to imagine hands crushing his them into his head so he couldn't hear the people on the other side of the felt ropes.

"Is that Karkat Vantas the author? Hmm I thought he'd be taller." Karkat swiveled his head trying to find the source of the voice, but with hundreds of people there, his eyes could not identify even where the voice had come from. He walked faster hoping to make it away from everyone as quickly as possible. After what felt like a few years Feferi pushed the door open in front of them and the ebony haired boy breathed out, not even realizing he had been holding his breath.

The feeling in his stomach faded, and with it his anxiety. Taking a breath he looked around the entrance of the hotel, it was elegantly decorated with light blues and silvers. Cushioned couches with beautifully carved wood and glass coffee tables, directly ahead of him was a large crescent shaped wood front desk with 3 computers and matching clerks. The room was spacey with a little bar sat on the far left corner with tall fancy glasses and alcohols Karkat had never evem heard of before (he figured by the end of this he would know first hand though).

Taking swift and long strides Karkat crossed the room to the desk. In front of him, a man with dark brown gelled back hair sat completely straight and stiff, he had a demeanor that shouted "I'm really fucking stuck up" which only pissed Karkat off to the max.

"Excuse me I would like to meet other celebrity assholes in this stuck up joint, would you mind directing me to such a place?" The boy said without pausing.

"Karkat!" Feferi said in a hushed and urgent tone, lightly elbowing his side.

"I would appreciate it if you minded your manners sir." The man said with a scowl on his face.

"And I would appreciate a fucking Chocolate Sunday but we don't always get what we want do we now? Let's try this again, will you _please_ direct me to the place I can meet other people that have enough money that they want to waste it on expensive and arrogant hotels like this. Of course that is if you aren't to busy fondling yourself." The man narrowed his eyes.

"I believe the place you are looking for down that hall, first door to your left" He said through gritted teeth.

Karkat nodded and marched away. Feferi shaking herself out of the shock of her writer bursting out like that, quickly caught up with Karkat. Her face was red with anger, her chinks puffing out a bit that reminded Karkat of a puffer fish, it fit her due to the obsession with sea life she had.

"WHAT THE SHELL WAS THAT!" She whisper yelled into his ear.

"He needed to be put in his place." was the boys only answer.

Feferi fumed silently, but decided there was nothing she could do, he was always like this around people. The man even though Karkat had probably proven himself the rudest person in the building already, had been true to his word about his directions. He would make an excellent GPS Karkat thought to himself. They walked into the huge conference room. It looked more like a ball room. Celebrities already littered the floor, some stood and laughed with one another, others sat down and made predictable small talk. Karkat chose the most secluded corner and decided to take it. Walking over he sat down and grabbed one of the small snacks that could hardly even be called a serving, popping it into his mouth and sitting down on the light blue cushioned couch.

"You can't sit here the whole time, you have to socialize some what." his editor said gesturing towards the other assholes in the room.

"Make me." Karkat said uninterested. He didn't expect her to take him up on him up on her offer.

The girl walked elegantly away from him and over the next 2 hours preceded to bring celebrity after celebrity to him and the occasional journalist. For the sake of his poor editors heart he played nice (mostly, sometimes you gotta put an asshat in his place).

He played nice little romance author up until a platinum blonde douche sat down next to him. This guy looked like he _knew_ he was all that shit. Oh yea, this wasn't going to end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter to make up for my ability to completely avoid writing xoxo  
> tell me if there are any grammar errors or such, I was a bit distracted while writing and didn't have time to reread and correct everything.  
> Thanks for reading this far <3


	4. The girl with the dragon scalemate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BACK BITCHES

"Holy shit,"

Holy shit was correct. The building looked like a friggin mini palace. The place was at least 20 stories tall with walls of reflective glass, the kind where people can look at you but you can't look at them, shit well that's intimidating. Not only was the place tall and a fucking fort the drive way was one of the fancy ass kinds that you drove around a centerpiece then the little demoted butlers came out to drive it off to God knows where. Seriously where the fuck did those guys go? They literally disappear into no where. Speaking of which, a for mentioned demoted butler was coming towards our own car.

A dark haired boy opened up the backseat door nearest the curb, stepping aside as Rose slid out graceful as always. She thanked him politely and moved away swiftly, Dave didn't miss that she slid a twenty into his pocket, Christ with that kind of tipping, maybe he should have gone down that career path. Oh wait, wasn't he a fairly famous singer right now though? Yea, suddenly being a demoted butler didn't seem so attractive anymore.

Of course then he wouldn't have to participate in this kind of shit. Seriously was this get-up so important that he had to get up at fuck all o' clock in the morning? Dave briefly considered staying in the car and going back to his comfy bed, of course then Rose would drag him back by the ear if need be. Frankly, the boy didn't want to be deaf so he opted out to drag his sweet ass out of the car.

The boy holding the door started to shut it, most likely with the intention to move the other side for Dave, but honestly who was patient enough to wait for that? Of course being the intelligent being he was he made a split second decision to slide across the seat and shimmy out the quickly closing door. This would have been a cool as fuck looking move if he hadn't caught his foot in the door at the last second, causing him to inelegantly fall forward, ready to kiss the concrete like a long lost lover.

He felt fingers clutch his upper arm just below his shoulder before he was almost violently yanked upwards by one a Rose Lalonde. Dave probably didn't give her enough credit in the strength department, though it was completely possible that her adrenaline of being embarrassed in front of the press kicked in. Yea, she was gonna kick his ass later for that attempted trick.

Catching himself from his trip up quickly Dave walked towards the felt looking carpet with Rose hooked onto his left arm. Fans crowded the area between drive way and the hotel, boxed in by thick heavy felt ropes and bulky security guards. fuck this was his least favorite part of being a famous person, sure he loved his fans but they did some weird shit. Mostly he just hated autographing, seriously what's the importance of a persons name in a illegible form? If anything they should want stamps of that persons finger print or what ever, at least those are all unique. Plus that would be so much easier than practicing your signature all the frickin time. When the boy first started to hit it big he spent nights just practicing writing his own _name._ What famous person didn't have a cool signature though, beside the fact that the following mornings of said nights had been agonizing, it was probably worth it.

Walking down the carpet Dave prayed to the gods that there wouldn't be that one fat guy with his shirt off asking him to sign his fucking _chest._ Seriously what's the point of that? Are you going to fucking tattoo it on or something? It'll probably come off in the next 2 minutes anyway from all the sweat pouring from them. Ew gross.

After making his was through the fans begging him to sign random shit. He did sign a few things of course, including an incredibly ironic turquoise dragon stuffy with buttons for eyes. The girl holding it was equally as interesting as the stuffy. Red hair that reached her shoulders in a sharp end, red oval glasses and a grin to kill. Distantly Dave hoped that he'd see her again some day.

Glass doors swung open in front of him and he exhaled heavily, whistling as he turned towards Rose so that he was walking backwards to a important looking desk.

"Dave, turn back around. You're foot work isn't exactly trustworthy." Rose said not even looking at her cousin. Said cousin scoffed then clutched his chest dramatically

"Oh Rosey, you hurt me. I can feel my legs collapsing underneath me out of shame." to Rose's pleasure they reach the desk before Dave could go off on any rambling episodes.

"Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider, correct?" A spiffy looking man typing quickly at a computer said, not bothering to look up as he talked. Man, this guy looked so done with the world.

"That would be us." Rose stated uninterested.

"Down the hall on your left." Dave strolled away as the other blonde quickly thanked the man and sped off next to her cousin.

"Now, we have to talk to a few producers and other singers for some good publicity, then it's free reign." Just like her, right to the point, jeez that can be so annoying some times.

"Uuuuuuuuuugh, when's John getting here?" John wasn't the kind to be late so it was mildly surprising that they hadn't seen him yet.

"I told him not to come till a bit later so you'd get your work done here," there was so much smug in her voice you could practically touch it.\

"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH"

* * *

That continued to be the most boring 3 hours of Dave's life. Okay, so maybe that's a little melodramatic but it was really fucking boring. How can one have fun discussing the business side of music? It's music there shouldn't be business in the first place. Not according to Rose of course, she lived for the "lively politics of music" yea, yea bullshit.

After the last of the assholes, oh whoops, _producers_ had left Dave began to make his way over to a couch to plop on when Rose gasped and grabbed his arm.

"Yo, Lalonde detach the claws you're gonna hurt the merchandise. What do you need I thought we were done?" Clearly irritated Dave whirled around glancing from her to where she was looking.

Following her gaze he found himself looking at a secluded corner of the large room at a small boy. He had dark hair that looked like a truffula tree, soft and mangled. His frame was small, even through his loose tux the blonde guessed he only got 2 out of his 3 meals a day. He looked disinterested head turned to the side, as he played with the fruity drink in his hand. His head turned giving me a better look at his face, a caramel complexion with soft features but a scowling mouth. It's like he was trying to make up for the fact that he didn't look threatening with an angry scowl and demeanor.

"Karkat Vantas," Rose finally said, "I absolutely adore his books." Oh Karkat, yea that rings a bell. A some what famous author. Mostly for some of his tragic romance books, good enough to give the notebook a run for its money apparently.

Before Dave knew what was happening he had been pulled across the room, Rose quickly started asking questions to a girl with long curly hair. Dave figured it couldn't hurt to talk to this Vantas kid. Who knows maybe he'd be more fun then the books he writes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anyone that actually bothered to wait for this god damn belated chapter, I AM EXTREMELY SORRY. You see I could make a ton of excuses except im not gonna bother. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. I hope to make a beautiful horse calendar for my updates at some point but at this point I am going to be cranking out a chapter every one or 2 weeks, likely on weekends very late XDXDXDXD.


	5. Fire and Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo <3 fancy seeing you here

Karkat rubbed his temple, shit he could feel the headache blooming behind his skull already. All he had to do was look at the blonde prick and his head bubbled with irritation and anxiety. Well, one of them was gonna walk out with a black eye. Judging by the boys tall and lean frame, it wasn't looking to good for Karkat. Sorry Feferi, he made it this far without an incident (not counting that dick clerk, that asshat deserved every word he got) but, it seemed as if that was about to come to an end. In the end trying to dress the short boy up as a good little innocent author was about as useful as dressing a cat up as a dog. Does the cat have a dog costume on? yes. Does it look like a dog? Somewhat, in a twisted way. Is it a dog? FUCKING NO!

Accepting his fate, Karkat glared at the glasses douche as he casually plopped down on the cushion next to him, A little too close if you asked Karkat. Then again being in the same room as him was to close in his opinion. The smaller boy tried to ignore the fact that the prick was moderately good looking. Okay, maybe a bit more then moderate. His blonde hair was gelled back showing off a chiseled jawline and high cheekbones, freckles danced across a cute nose that turned up at the end just enough to give off an innocent puppy look. Unlike Karkats caramel mocha skin, the other had pale and fair skin that looked as if it had never been touched by the sun. His body was about perfect as his face, lean but toned. the forearms showed off by his rolled up flannel sleeves told him this guy was far from a couch potato.

Suddenly Karkat felt a lot less agitated and a lot more intimidated, he didn't like other people having time to look him up and down like he had just done to this blonde. Most of the time he could feel silent judgment soon after any evaluation. He wasn't tall, far from it actually standing at 4'11 he was shorter then most teenage girls. Giving people the advantage of being able to look down on him physically, and soon after metaphorically as well. Aside from height he didn't fancy himself good looking either, body weight also had been an issue for him for years. He knew he wasn't fat, but he never could find average either, making him bony and small.

After that instance of intimidation he pasted a glare back on his face and looked the other straight in the eye- or at least where he assumed his eyes were under those stupid fucking shades, who the hell wears sunglasses inside anyway? Especially this dimly lit shithole. Of course, the prick seemed as if he could care less about Karkats intense attempt to murder him purely through eye contact- shade/eye contact.

"Soooooo, any reason you chose the most isolated and shady ass corner in this joint?", the taller of the two said smoothly.

"I don't like people, but I actually happened to have a special spot in my cold soul where I simply sit and contemplate how to kill all shade wearing pricks though." Karkat said without missing a beat.

"Dude, don't hate on the shades. They're the lady killers. Everyone falls for these bad boys, walking by and swooning like a cartoon bimbo after seeing Johnny Bravo."

"Let me guess it's when you take off the glasses that they run for their sad little lives or risk turning to stone?" The blondes smirk twitched so fast that Karkat didn't even notice.

"The shades are like a treasure chest, all the loot and riches are inside."

"Ya know it's actually considered somewhat rude on this continent to just sit next to a random person and start filling their ears with loud and useless noise? I actually think that your ass must be jealous of all the shit coming out of your mouth."

"Oooooh! Going in for the kill with etiquette, proper grammar, and shitty insults. someone call Guinness World Records, cause I'm pretty sure the biggest KO of all times just went down. Shit is gonna be in textbooks all around the globe, little kids will read all about the Not-So-Epic downfall of Dave Strider via the biggest KO delivered ever by Karkat Vantas."

Wait what? At some point during that long as fuck rambling Karkat zoned out only to hear his name said by this random jackass. How the fuck did he know his name?

"How the fuck do you know my name?" Karkat asked suddenly very confused. He hadn't said his name right? His memory wasn't that bad. The other boy scoffed.

"Do you not know my name?" Should he? He was pretty sure that he would remember meeting someone like this douche. Again, his memory wasn't that bad.

"Should I?" At this point he was for the most part just repeating his thoughts.

"What has the world come to? Where trashy romance novelist have more fame then people with real talent?" Karkat angrily ignored the obviously placed insult there favoring his questions and confusion so he didn't punch this guy in his dick.

"What talent? There's no way a shitty person like you could do anything other then tell retarded stories and draw crappy crayon pictures with that defective personality." Karkat hoped he'd be able to actually weasel out what this guy did without having to straight up ask.

"Yo, don't judge a book by its cover, you're looking at the worlds best rapper and singer." Success. Wait. Oh. _Oh._ So this was the most recent teenage heart throb. Dave Strider. Karkat hadn't really listened to many of his songs and didn't plan on it, but at least 95% of the teenage population had a crush on this dick. Damn, he wished he could introduce them all so they could be disappointed by their cute teenage dreams.

"How does it feel to be the definition of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream?" Strider smirked, Vantas started chewing on his fingernails. It was a nervous habit he picked up off his friend Terezi. Speaking of the blind girl, She probably waited outside this morning looking for Karkat. Huh, almost made him feel bad for coming so early.

"Please, I'm more like the inspiration for every Taylor Swift song, ever." Karkat cracked a smirk quickly covering it up with his normal frown.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!" Karkat looked in the direction of the voice just in time to avoid a body flying into the space between him and Dave.

"HOLYSHITWHATTHEFUCK!" He knew Feferi probably gave him look for that one, but he was a bit to distracted looking at the body that had planted itself between him and Dave. His back was turned to him so he couldn't see his face, only a mop of black hair.

"Yo, John little more of a warning next time bro. I think you may have given Karkat another aneurism." To this "John" turned his head so he was facing Karkat giving him more of a view. John had dark messy hair on top of a dorky face. Huge rectangle glasses adorned ocean blue eyes, he had a huge smile that made it look as if he could never be sad. Ever. His buckteeth made him look childish in a cute innocent way.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. My name's John, John Egbert. Dave invited me, I'm not actually famous or awesome like you guys." he smiled chuckling at himself.

"Hey don't beat yourself up, I'm sure you could get in here by yourself for being the biggest dork of all time." John whipped his head back towards Dave trying to be threatening and failing miserably.

"I am NOT that much of a dork. If anything I would get in for being the best prankster of all time!" John crossed his arms indignantly.

"Your best prank is taking candy from a baby. Literally."

"You'll see the trickster will get you! Watch your back, I'll be back!!" With that last battle cry he took off, hopping off the couch and just about skipping into the crowd.

"What the actual fuck was that about?" The dark haired boy was still looking into the crowd after John, thoroughly confused by this turn of events. Dave just chuckled.

"John? He's just a premature boy locked in a dorky body."

"No, what was the whole pranking shit about?"

"He... Enjoys pranks, I'll admit he can be pretty evil, but this place is just a fancy nightclub with a bunch of people that have a stick thoroughly shoved up their ass. Not much you can do."

"I'll drink to that." Karkat mumbled swallowing the last bit of his fruity alcoholic beverage that he had been working on all afternoon.

"Ain't it a bit early for that? Ya know what, I don't give a shit, the real question is are you a girl or something? That drink has like 15 umbrellas and 12 different types of fruit." Strider raised his eyebrow in question. Karkat snarled and looked away.

"It's fucking delicious you arrogant prick." He heard the a piece of the ghostbusters song and then silence, curious Karkat looked back over at Strider. He was looking at his phone eyebrows furrowed

"Oh _shit._ " The blonde mumbled then frantically looked around, well as frantic as a stoic faced heart throb could get.

"um seeyagottagolater." His words blended together as he jumped off the couch and full on sprinted into the crowd.

De fuck just happened? Was he just dissed for no exact reason? Karkat briefly wondered why then passed it by deeming it a simple miracle. With this conclusion he got up walking into the crowd to navigate his way to the bar for another girly- _fruity_ drink. Karkat had made it about half way there and was in the middle of the dance floor when a loud screeching noise filled his ears. swearing he covered one ear with his hand and soon after identified the noise as a fire alarm.

A deep voice came on over the mic, "Please leave in a calm and orderly manner." For a minute everyone did just that, walking calmly to the exit, that is, until the sprinklers came on.

Karkat felt the water already start to seep into his nicely combed hair that he had tried not to ruin over the course of the day for Feferi's sake, yep that was gone now. The women were the first to start running, scrambling towards the exit way trying to maintain there 3 hour makeup job and beautiful dresses. The men ran after them trying to help and get in their favor (probably their pants as well), many going so far as to take off their dress coat jackets and hold it over the women's heads. Soon the whole place was a scrambling screeching mess, people pushed and shoved at others, others being mostly Karkat it seemed.

The small boy could do nothing but stand stock still getting pushed from place to place. He hated small spaces, he hated crowds, and his anxiety was starting to understand that. His breath came in short and shallow bursts as he started to panic and hyperventilate. Shitshitshitshitshit this couldn't be happening it's a fucking _party_ there's no way he could have a panic attack here

Someone rushed by him, slipping slightly on the wet floor the person grabbed Karkat's shoulder for support and pushing him backwards as he gained balance and started running again. When the smaller slipped back trying catch his footing he found himself falling. _Crap fucking falling._ Well this was gonna hurt. Karkat hit something and prepared for the burst of pain but there was none. Strong arms rapped around his mid section and hugged him against a warm and hard chest. A second rolled by when the person finally pulled the brown haired boy back on his feet and grabbed his lower arm turning him towards the mystery person.

Strider?

Dave tugged on Karkat's arm and basically dragged him against the flow of the crowd.

"HOLY FUCKING CHRIST MOVE YOUR GODDAMN FEET!" Strider shouted at him insistently. The shout knocked Karkat out of his stupor as he blinked and started to run with Strider, Dave still being the much taller of the two was faster and had to latch onto Karkat's arm as to not lose him as he ran. 15 seconds of running later, they arrived at an out of the way door which Dave kicked open fuming. He let go of Karkat, marching forward into a dark and disgusting alley way.

"EGBERT YOU PIECE OF SHIT." Karkat finally noticed the form of John doubled over in laughter, not a drop of water on him. _Not a drop of water on him._ **That little bitch pulled the fire alarm.**

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING DICKWAD WERE YOU THINKING YOU GIGANTIC ASSFACE?! WAIT, YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T WITH THAT FUCKIN SWISS CHEESE SLICE OF A SHITFUCKING BRAIN! NO WAIT, THAT'S AN INSULT TO  EVERY FUCKING SLICE OF SWISS CHEESE!!!" Karkat shouted approaching Egbert and grabbing him by the shirt collar. The guy had the nerve to laugh even harder.

Angry enough to punch the kid but not enough to get a law suit (again) Karkat tore off his soaked tie and shoved it down Egbert's boxers, his laughter stopped replaced with squeaking. Karkat turned away satisfied with himself and stripped off the soaked suit jacket sighing, he was so dead. He could hear Strider laughing in the backround, chatting with John but he refused to face them, mad that they had ruined his only suit. Kanaya would kill him if Feferi didn't get to him first. He groaned and rubbed his temple. Fuck.

"Yo, Karks, I'll get that fixed for you." What?

"You have known me for like an hour and you would fix this," Karkat pointed to the suit jacket in his hand, "for me?"

"Consider it a sorry from that gigantic dork," he put a thumb over his shoulder referring to John. Karkat hesitated a second, then hastily decided fuck it and marched up to Dave grabbed his arm and his back pocket pen ("All writers should have a pen on them at all times!!! you should know this by now! Glub") Then jotted down his phone number in big numbers so even this idiot could read them. With that, Karkat shoved the wet jacket into his arms and strutted away down the alley towards the street.

"Don't lose it you dumb dipshit." Karkat shouted not bothering to look back.

"Don't worry princess your handkerchief is in safe hands." Some how Karkat doubted that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3 I was kind of stumped on how to make this chapter as good and fun as I wanted it to be, I feel the first meeting is extremely important, so I sat on it a few days then this idea started to bloom into my head and all the sudden I was just BURSTING to write it!!!! I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it!!! <3<3<3
> 
> Tell me of any mistakes I worked on this for like 3 hours and it was late when I finished.


	6. Dave's POV part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split the chapter in 2 and put them out separately so I could get some of what im writing out to you guys faster!! I thought I would free up when summer came but it feels like ive gotten even more busy :? so yea I hope you like it, the other half of this will be coming out ASAP <3<3<3

As soon as Dave had seen the words on his phone screen he knew this whole prissy people get-together was fucked. Okay, well maybe not. Chances were John would wimp out at his attempt at what he had called the “ultimate prank” in his warning text. Dave however, was not taking that chance. He was not getting his ass kicked by Rose again because of that bucktoothed dork. His idea of a good prank is to slam someone’s face into their cake on the poor sap’s birthday and then post a video of it on Youtube. Sadly, since John was friends with someone famous, it actually worked because people would scramble to watch anything even close to their almighty celebrity crush. Luckily Dave was able to avoid some of his pranks (and unwanted embarrassment) due to some weird tradition of texting his victims, the blonde wasn’t complaining about this, but why would someone do that? Who warns their victims of an oncoming prank anyway? Apparently John because before every prank he does he’ll send some kind of cryptic riddle bullshit about what he’s about to do, which is honest to god one of the most ridiculous things Dave thought a person _could_ do. Isn’t the whole point of a prank to be a _surprise_?

 _“Water shall rain down on fake fire aka Dave Striders shitty raps_ :B" Personally Dave had been most hurt by the shitty comment. His sick fires were far from shitty, especially if it was enough for John to need to put them out with FUCKING SPRINKLERS. With that thought, Dave barreled toward a lone hallway in the corner furthest from the main entrance, the hall was more abandoned then even Karkat's corner, the perfect place for Egbert to spring his trap, or ya know, just set off the fire alarm. Sure enough as soon as Dave turned into the hallway (being that he was still sprinting with full force his turn wasn't the most graceful and resulted in him almost kissing the floor) the first thing he saw was a black suit with blue rims, a head of messy hair that was tamed to the side, and a grin that gave the joker a run for his money.

Seriously, Joker didn't have shit on this boys face right now. It didn't look like his mouth would smile any wider, his buckteeth made it all the more scary as it made his mouth look far bigger then it actually is. Huge dorky glasses were pressed high up his face due to the dimples being formed by an unnaturally large smile, to top it off his eyes glimmered with a look he only got when he comes up with a prank or is about to pull one. Dave was tempted to just run for his life, but he knew that if he didn't stop this prank crazed monster, Rose wouldn't feed him for a week. Dave Strider could enjoy the irony of one living off fast food but doing it himself was out of the option, maintaining this body wasn't achieved by eating the equivalent to 5 cakes a day (though he had once indulged in eating 5 cakes in a single day, he tried not to think much about that day, it didn't end pretty to say the least).

"Egbert, man, don't do this." Dave said slowly walking toward the boy who had both hands firmly held on the fire alarm lever, the blonde approached him as one might approach a scared feline that you're trying to catch.

"Oh but Dave, you've brought this upon yourself. Doubting the prank king was a mistake that cannot come without consequences!!!" John laughed, throwing his head back like an evil queen who has just killed the sweet innocent princess. Time for the knight to make his move, taking advantage of the fact that Evil Queen was not looking, the Knight rushed forward and bulldozed into her, throwing her to the ground and rolling off her afterwards only to get up and place a foot on her stomach. Damn this Knight could not be more heroic. The whole audience would be bursting into applause and giving encore upon encore for this brave Knight whom just saved the beautiful Princess Fire Alarm from sure terror. Well, something like that, point is this would be a block buster movie if it weren't for the literal trick the jester of an Evil Queen had up her sleeve.

Though John was on the ground he was still smiling, then slowly he pulled out a thick string of yarn from inside his sleeve and yanked on it. Dave's eyes followed the string and saw it connected to the fire alarm a moment to late. Desperate he dived in the direction of the alarm, but the deed had been done, a screeching sound reached his ears.

"LESSON ONE OF BEING A TRICKSTER, ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN!!" Before Dave could turn around, John took his chance getting up and bolting out the emergency exit a bit further down the hall. Strider cursed under his breath, he should go and grab Rose before the water started to at least try to save himself from getting fed freaky clown burgers for a week. He turned away from the way John had been and started a light jog down the hallway and back towards the fray of people. When he stepped out he was some what surprised to see people were being orderly, of course now that he had thought that though, it was jinxed. Damn, shoulda knocked on wood.

He felt the water before he realized it was falling, and just like that the whole auditorium was alight with frenzy and panic. Dave cursed under his breath before taking off at a light jog into the traffic of panicked women trying desperately not to ruin their makeup. The blonde briefly wondered why they were so focused on being pretty for the cameras even though for all they knew there might be a fire threatening to burn and eat them alive. None the less, Dave kept his pace through the crowd looking for Rose, but his hope dwindled when he realized she had most likely been pushed out the door by crazed celebrities already, or in the thick of the crowd where he would never be able to simply shove his way into.

Coming to a halt the boy sighed, looking down at himself. Great, his skinnies were absolutely soaked, he might as well taped them to his legs for how long it would take to get them off. He thought momentarily it would have been easier to just leave out the emergency exit with John while he had the chance, his mood changed when he looked to the side though.

The crowd had thinned considerably from packed side to side to crowded, but easy enough for someone as tall and lean as Dave to see his way through the crowd. It was through the gentle trickle of people that he saw the small silhouette of a certain brunette writer. Karkat looked stunned and panicked, but not like the people around him. Dave could see something else in the other boy’s eyes that told him it was something else.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Dave started to slip his way through the ever thinning crowd toward the writer. He was somewhere around 10 feet when he saw him slip, the gathering water on the ground fueling his fall. The blonde swore loudly then sprinted as fast as he could while still making sure he avoided his own date with the ground.

Skidding to a halt behind the smaller, Dave wrapped his arms around Karkat’s mid-section catching him just in time before he really did fall to the floor. Karkat was small in Dave’s arms, and extremely light, was it normal for someone like him to be this light? Maybe it was just the freakish strength Dave had built up over time. He couldn’t be sure.

The blonde realized that he probably was holding onto the writer far longer than necessary, but he couldn’t help it. Even in the cold water raining above them Karkat was warm, his figure was exceptionally, especially compared to Dave, making him feel like he was hugging a teddy bear.

Shaking his head to back to reality, Dave stepped back to regain more of his balance, pulling the teddy bear boy causing his distraction back onto his feet. With one final tug, Strider grabbed the other boy’s wrist and started running in the direction of the fire escape. The blonde laughed inwardly at the irony of the fact that only 3 people would be using it even though it was _the actual fire escape._

After a few paces of running, Dave realized that he was basically dragging a dazed and confused Karkat along. The Vantas boy’s eyes looked almost comical, wide and glazed over, jaw slightly agape, and eyebrows crinkled. Dave didn’t look long enough to let his imagination wonder to where else Karkat could use that face. Okay, seriously it’s not exactly easy to drag a person along wet and slippery ground without falling, he needed **some** participation from the smaller of them.

“HOLY FUCKING CHRIST MOVE YOUR GODDAMN FEET!" Having finally gotten fed up with dragging his goddamn ass, Strider’s tone demanded attention. Just like that, Karkat snapped out of his daze and started to dash alongside Dave towards the exit. Without noticing, Dave kept a hold of Karkat’s warm hand as they sprinted to safety.

Making a sharp turn down the hallway that nearly ended in Dave falling _(again),_ the boys finally ran the final stretch, barreling through the exit out into a ratty alleyway. The alleyway was dark and shadowed from the tall buildings on either side of it. There wasn’t much room, the alley was only about 10 feet in width, a dead end on the left and 1 or 2 blocks back to the street to the right.

Half a second after leaving the building, Dave immediately spotted tasseled and _dry_ hair. John was hunched over laughing his ass off as if this shit was funny. No, this was about as funny as seeing someone point a loaded gun at a puppy. If this party shindig was the puppy, Egbert would be the one holding the loaded gun, when he pulled the fire alarm, it was equivalent to pulling the trigger. Holy crap even just thinking about it that way made the need to make the puppy killing prankster pay.

"EGBERT YOU PIECE OF SHIT." Pulling off his soaked flannel, Dave cursed John Egbert to the depths of hell where he hoped some demon would curse him further and throw him into a pit of smuppets, because God knows how much he hates those kinky sex toys.

Dave through his soaked flannel at the trickster, and ran a hand through his blonde hair that was effectively ruined. Damn, he spent who knows how long on that god awful jell, what a waste of time and 2 bottles of hair spray. Strider turned to face Karkat who hadn’t said anything yet, just as he turned a look of understanding crossed his features before pure anger took over.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING DICKWAD WERE YOU THINKING YOU GIGANTIC ASSFACE?! WAIT, YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T WITH THAT FUCKIN SWISS CHEESE SLICE OF A SHITFUCKING BRAIN! NO WAIT, THAT'S AN INSULT TO EVERY FUCKING SLICE OF SWISS CHEESE!!!"

Dave watched with amusement as each time Vantas shouted another explicative he took an angry step toward John. At the last word of his rant, he grabbed John by his tie and pulled him so close John could feel angry breaths fume out on him. Dave almost shouted Egbert’s winning catch phrase ‘NO HOMO’ for him.

Karkat was still shorter then John so it looked slightly odd to see the shorter trying to be threatening even though he didn’t look it. John must have noticed the height difference as well, because he laughed even harder as the shorter tried to bare his teeth menacingly. This act, of course just sealed his fate, as soon as Karkat heard the laugh, his eyes grew even angrier while his eyes became almost cat like.

With one swift and fury filled movement, Vantas tore off his soaked tie and shoved it down Egbert’s pants. From the way John squealed, it also went down his boxers.

Dave erupted into fits of laughter, almost falling back and rolling on the ground with amusement. Of course he didn’t want to ruin his favorite skinnies though, so he settled for placing a hand over his stomach and leaning up against the ratty wall for support.

“D-DAVE THIS I-ISN’T FUNNY!” John broke into another squeal as he tried to fish out the tie, “F-FUCK WHY IS IT S-SO COLD?!” ,John looked down and finally pulled the tie out, throwing it against the alley wall furthest from him.

“You don’t,” Dave couldn’t help but breaking out into fits of laughter in between his sentences, “You don’t sound like a No Homo anymore.” John blushed even more at the statement, narrowing his eyes at Dave in what was supposed to be an angry way, but the blush on his cheeks just made him look ridiculous.

“Oh shut up Dave, you’re probably wishing that you could get any kind of action down under!” Dave choked on his own air, causing him to cough and snort in a very un-cool kid like way. Egbert started giggling uncontrollably at this.

“Dude, speak for yourself.” With this last remark, Strider turned his attention to the short, angry, ball of cuteness standing a few meters down the alley. Even from the back the boy looked troubled as he held up a soaked through suit jacket.

After a second of examining the coat, a thought pounced on the blonde: After this, he would never see Karkat again, unless of course they had another one of these shitty get-togethers. Dave doubted that would happen as eventually they would figure out that it all had been a rouse brought up by a single immature dorkface.

For some reason, Dave felt something well up in his chest, something like… Sorrow? He didn’t want to never talk to the short ball anger again, he wanted him to stay and be a total jackass. Strider would never admit it but Karkat had brought an air of normality to his starstruck and famous lifestyle. Over the years, Dave found the only people that actually talked to him as if he were a normal person, were the few that had known him before he had hit it big. Out of those people, the ones he felt he could talk too dwindled down immensely.

Karkat was different, he hadn’t even known who he was. Even after he had told the other his identity (Oh all the ironic superhero jokes) he had just made jokes about it, not stunned at all. Sure, one could assume it’s because they were both famous, but it didn’t feel that way. When Dave was around others of equal status, they were friendly with each other, but it felt forced and uptight, as if even after a couple of drinks it would be awkward. Vantas had cared little for the prick as soon as he showed his face, even boldly greeted the blonde with a death threat.

"Yo, Karks, I'll get that fixed for you." Shit, did that just come out of his mouth?

"You have known me for like an hour and you would fix this," The small boy pointed at the drenched suit coat. “For me?”

Crap think fast, the ball of fury that he actually really wants to know better is asking a question. Quickly, Dave accessed the rapping and sick fires part of his brain to throw out some semblance of an answer.

“Consider it a sorry from that gigantic dork.” Dave awkwardly threw a thumb over his shoulder to gesture at Egbert.

Vantas only stood in the same spot for a few seconds before finally letting out an exasperated sigh and marched toward Dave. Strider vaguely wondered where the pen had come from when Karkat started jotting down a number on his arm, then quickly dismissed the thought as _wait holy shit cute little ball of fury is writing his number on your arm._ Wait cute? When did that word get there? Dave Strider did not just think of the word cute applying to this small boy right?

The blonde was pulled out of his unnoticed stupor as the suit jacket was thrown ungracefully at his face. Quickly regaining his composure, Dave fanned out the jacket and folded it somewhat so it was easier to carry.

"Don't lose it you dumb dipshit." Karkat shouted not bothering to look back at Dave.

"Don't worry princess your handkerchief is in safe hands." An image flashed through Dave’s mind of Karkat in a dress with a tiara, as Dave heroically carried him bridal style in his arms dressed in a full set of armor. Oh the irony was endless with Karkat, Dave was gonna like him, he could feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IS YOUR FAITH IN ME RESTORED YET?? AM I WORTHY OF LOVE AGAIN???? HAS SENPAI NOTICED ME????????????????????????????????????????? Im sorry I had such a bad writers block en shit, its sad because I knew what I was gonna do I just didn't feel like doing it, thankyou to those who helped me out of my funk, I LOVE ALL YALL and I have the next few chapters figured out so pray I find energy and time I need to write them XD <3<3<3


	7. Dave's pov part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGH IVE DONE IT. ITS 4 IN THE MOURNING AND IVE FINALLY DONE IT. *cries* I never could have done this without redbull my heart and soul goes out to you.

"Dude, what the fuck! You don't even do laundry for yourself, since when do you do it for other people?" John's voice was shrill when he cursed, but the rest was good natured and giggly. Dave turned around to look at Egbert directly, the dork was grinning ear to ear, buck teeth making an appearance once again.

"Since now, and hey perks of being rich, people do laundry for you." The last part of it was complete and utter bullshit. Well, he was rich but the thought of having maids to make his home _clean_ and _presentable,_ made him feel uneasy. His home had always been cluttered and in general a complete mess, just because he hit it big does not mean he was going to change his cleaning habits. That and the fact that the maids that he had tried to hire before quit after around 2 weeks because of all the smuppet ass they had to clean, only to find it had magically reappeared except in larger quantities only a day or 2 later, sometimes Dave thought his Bro _wanted_ to freak them the fuck out and get them to leave. Who knows what else they might have found in those huge piles of ass, he remembered one lady screamed and bolted as if Satan was on her heels after looking through a pile.

"As if, you can't keep a girlfriend much less a _maid."_ Shit this kid knew him to well. In his defense to the girlfriend comment, the last girlfriend he had was while he was in his second year of college. He had actually had quite a few girlfriends before then, but a single relationship with his now good friend Jade had kind of fucked him over for the whole dating thing. Jade is John's cousin who lived in Oregon with her Grandfather in some secluded forest. Before college they had only ever talked online, but she moved down to attend U.C Davis in California. Dave had happened to be attending a community college nearby and due to her lack of car, he often gave her rides.

At first it was platonic but then a huge nasty crush started to brew inside of Dave, luckily, it was requited. So for a year, they dated and it was happy, cute, and perfect, but when they both got into their second year of college, shit started going downhill. Jade had to focus on her veterinary classes and Dave started a job DJing at a few clubs on week nights, while also in his classes for music theory and audio engineering. All of this came together as a big mess of "How come I don't see you anymore?" "You're always at those clubs, how do I know you're not doing anything?!" on Jade's part and a lot of jealousy, distrust and general anger on Dave's part. The whole time though like a fool the boy believed it would get better, probably why it caught him so off guard when she broke up with him, though it was evident it was going to happen in other people’s eyes.

Love makes you blind.

After that fiasco, broken hearted and blaming himself, Dave ended up getting into a lot of drinking trouble, school trouble, and just general crappy trouble. After 2 months of the bad habits, Rose and John staged an intervention that woke him up and got him off of his ass and back into reality. His heart ached for the rest of that year and he didn't start talking to Jade again until his final year at college, it turned out okay for their relationship and they could even be considered best friends now, but Dave's love life had took a fatal blow that he just couldn't quite recover from.

"Dude shut up, he seemed interesting, and anyone that shoves a soaked tie down _your_ underwear, is my friend." John visibly shuddered at the mention of the tie, the thing might as well been demonic in the dorky boy's head. Dave snickered at this, starting to walk towards the exit of the alleyway that only a few minutes ago a smaller and much angrier boy had walked out.

"Oh my God, wait, do you have a crush on Karkat? You _soooooo_ have a crush on Karkat!" John giggled like a school girl that had just been noticed by senpai, hopping towards Dave and walking backwards in front of the blonde.

"Bro, don't even go there. He's like 6 years younger than me, it’s basically pedophilia." Dave knew for a fact that Karkat wasn't that young, but he was so short, passing him off as a 15 or 16 year old would be far from a problem. Not to mention the fact that his personality perfectly matched the anger and annoyance of a rebelling teenager.

"Suuuure dude, we all can see that you're into dick, the smuppets have totally gotten to you." John snickered while saying this. Dave simply stuck his tongue out at the black haired boy, he wasn't going to say anything to such a remark.

John didn’t push the subject further than that, even if they both knew it was all kicks and giggles. Being Dave’s closest friend for the last few years, and knowing him before his rise to stardom he knew that Dave carried many deep seeded fears, more than the blonde would like to admit that he even had. The fear they had just broached was a internalized homophobia thanks to growing up in an immensely conservatory part of Texas before moving to California after his freshman year.

At the time, Dave had made no big deal out of it. Telling his bro that it sucked he was going to have to leave his friends but he still thought it would be cool. He had been stoic and pokerfaced about how he really felt. The truth is he could never be able to thank his bro enough for getting him out of there.

He knew his brother moved out to Cali for his own reasons, one definitely being that he was about as straight as a rainbow, but her couldn’t shake the feeling that his bro knew about him. It was stupid to think that considering they barely told each other good mourning and/or goodnight, fat chance Dave would be able to have an entire “my little brother is into dick too” conversation.

For some reason, Dave always had the unspoken feeling his brother had always just _known._

The blonde didn’t like thinking of his years in Texas, so even John and his Bro had decided that avoiding the subject was more than acceptable until Dave could come to terms with those years of his life. Rose had many times tried broaching the subject, but even she couldn’t find it in her to watch as her cousin became a completely different person while talking about that time of his life.

Seconds of comfortable silence passed between the 2 as they walked toward the street, sirens blared loudly, telling them that the trucks the sound belonged to wasn’t far away. John grew more and more exited as they got nearer the exit of the ratty alleyway, eager to see the results of his, admittedly huge prank. Dave stayed pokerfaced as always only a brief downwards twitch of his lips to give away the fact that he was _absolutely fucking terrified_ of what rose would do to his hide when she saw them.

“Hey dude, lets take a taxi back to the house.” Dave carefully said this, trying desperately to sound normal, and not like he only wanted to take a cab back to prolong the lecture awaiting him. It’s not like it was Dave’s fault. In fact, he had jack shit to do with that stupid prank. Fucking Egbert always getting him into trouble.

“Yea, sure let’s do that.” Unlike Dave, the crack in Egbert’s voice gave away his fear of the monster known as Rose.

When they finally reached the street, Strider could have swore he saw a look of pure happiness dress the shorter ones face. Ironic seeing as anyone else looking at the scene would have been horrified.

Dozens upon Dozens of paparazzi were standing at the entrance of the fancy hotel, soaked guests giving over dramatic stories to the eager journalists could be seen all down the anywhere in that 300 foot radius. If the boys had been any closer Dave knew for certain he would have been jumped by one of the conniving journalists, thirsty for a good story. There were three fire trucks there, and 2 dozen people loitering about around the trucks, pretending they were injured just to get a good spot on a magazine.

“I AM THE ULTIMATE PRAN- smurfnergj,” upon hearing the boy about to admit he was the one who made this big mess, Strider quickly put his palm on the boys mouth and started walking the other direction. For a few seconds John simply stumbled backwards after Dave trying not to trip, until he finally got his bearings. Opening his mouth, John licked a as much as the others hand as he could.

“HOLY SHIT DUDE, WHAT THE HELL!” Dave quickly withdrew his hand from the giggling mess that was John. Trying to retaliate, the blonde wiped his saliva stricken hand on John’s suit jacket, only making the shorter laugh harder.

“Dude, your face,” He took an interval to laugh more and catch up to the other who had kept on walking, “Was fucking priceless.” John finished breathlessly.

The taller of the two only grumbled as an answer, refusing his companion the satisfaction of a real response. They walked quietly for 2 blocks before Dave deemed it save to call a cab. He skillfully whistled and called out to passing cabs until one pulled over and let them in. The driver was a gruff, meaty man, who had very obviously not had a day any better than the platinum haired boy. To Dave’s relief, the man either didn’t recognize him or simply didn’t care enough to acknowledge who he was. Still, he spent the car ride in silence out of fear that saying something would make the driver act differently. He was just too tired to autograph and answer questions right now, even if it was for the cabby’s daughter or other younger relative. Maybe he would want it for himself, who knows? Either way he wouldn’t judge. Okay, he might judge a little.

After 2 minutes in the cab, Dave had already lost himself in his thoughts, tapping a beat out on his leg as he did so. He did that a lot, so much that John who had once been annoyed with it, joined him with an additional beat or sound, occasionally even a beatbox.

This time though, John ignored it and wrapped himself into his blog, reading up on other pranks as well. While one was engrossed in his phone, the taller of them was engrossed in thought. He found himself doing that a lot lately, staring at the window and simply exploring the corners of his mind.

His hand slipped from the ledge on the window to his thigh, continuing the beat the entire time. What made him stop though, was the sudden feeling of wet and soft fabric under the thump of his fingers. Oh, the jacket, he had almost completely forgot he had it. Absent mindedly, Dave picked up the coat by its collar and looked at it. Small was the first word that came to mind, he hadn’t really grasped just how tiny it was. Okay it wasn’t that tiny, but for Dave who 6’1, it looked as if it could have been a jacket for a gremlin. Huh, that’s not actually to far off now that he’d thought of it.

Back while Dave had been sitting with the other boy, he tried desperately to make himself look bigger now that he thought on it. Puffing out his chest straightening his back till the muscle must have been tired and taunt, and holding his chin up just enough that if you didn’t look for it you wouldn’t notice. It had worked, looking at the jacket the boy must have been at least half a foot smaller then what he initially thought. _He’s so small that’s so fucking adorable._

Wait, **adorable**? Was that just the word he used? Fuck it, Dave was too tired to monitor his somewhat gay thoughts and no homo them. It was just a word, it’s not like he was thinking about shoving his tongue down the dudes throat. Momentarily, Dave stopped at that thought then realized _Karkat would probably bite his fucking tongue off no questions asked_. Yup, that would definitely put an end to his singing career.

Dave sighed, maybe that wouldn’t so bad though. The money he already had from his past 2 years on this career path was probably more than some people would make in their life time. Yea, lifetime. Dave hit it big, and what he means by hit it big is he was basically a male version of Taylor Swift, minus the constant break ups and complaining through music.

“Alright that’ll be 30 bucks,” The gruff voice of the cabby pulled him out of his thoughts. Dave and John both reached for their wallets, only to realize they had left them in their personal limo. Almost instantaneously, both boys looked at each other with the look that put what both were thinking into words _oh shit._ After 30 seconds of holding his hand back to get the money the man turned around. His face changed from annoyed to “ _are you fucking serious”_ in 0.5 seconds after seeing John’s especially guilty and panicked face.

“U-umm we a-actually don-“

“Here you go sir, keep the change. Thank you for taking the time to bring my lovely cousin all the way out here so far from the city.”

Dave knew it was Rose immediately, her manicured hands slipped him the fifty as if she went through college just for that one simple move. Her voice was practiced and laced with grace friendliness, but he knew, he could hear the silent venom behind the words _“lovely cousin,_ that told him he was in deep shit. Damn, he almost wished he could’ve been taken to jail or beat, or whatever it was the drivers did when their customers couldn’t pay. It was probably better then whatever he had coming.

John looked like a kicked puppy as he climbed out of the cab, Dave followed close behind, refusing to look fazed. Rose would be able to see through his façade easy, but it was worth a try. The cabby nodded and gave an approving grunt in Roses way, driving away without another word. The three of them all watched the taxi as it went down the road, finally rounding a corner onto another street. Dave stood with his hands in his back pockets, stoic as always, John nervously fiddled with the edge of his glasses as he watched the taxi, looking as if he might go running after it shouting “Take me with you!”. Rose simply looked after it smiling like she knew something we didn’t, which she probably did.

“David Elizabeth Strider. You are in deep shit.” Well he was in deep shit. “Do you know how important that event was?” Not really no, but it must have been important because she looked as if she was about to lose her cool. Rose was scary when she lost her cool, her calmness was unnerving as well, but her anger was flat out scary. “You set off the fire alarm. You set off. The fucking fire alarm.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for this, it’s Egbert’s fault. He’s the one that did it. I didn’t even know what he was doing until he did it. Like some sad poetic justice that all the dry humored assholes would get soaked by an equally retarded trickster, like some kind of fucked up confetti. Surprise motherfucker it’s raining! Now maybe that stick will be easier to pull the fuck out of your ass.” Shiit he was rambling.

“Your rambling David, it’s a bad habit you should fix it. As for you John, I cannot _believe_ you would do such an irresponsible and overall reckless thing!” John bristled as the attention was turned towards him.

“I-I was just trying to show Dave that I’m the prank master! The fool doubted my immense power!” Dave arced a brow over his shades at the pathetic excuse and attempt at a joke.

Rose groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, giving Dave the chance to look at how their little adventure earlier that day. Her short hair was pulled back into a small ponytail, still wet. Her Long dress looked heavy, drooping down further then it was supposed to around her neck and chest. Her makeup was smeared, but not much. Rose had probably retouched it a bit so she didn’t look like her boyfriend just broke up with her. Overall, she just looked tire. Dave felt guilt ebb at him.

“Okay look, you two are going to make this up to me. This was a big opportunity to look for sponsors, so David you are going to the recording studio,” No way she wouldn’t, “And finally finish up that single so since we didn’t get any sponsors, we’ll get some attention from the public hopefully.” She did it. Shots were fired, and hot damn did they hit home. Dave had been avoiding this for weeks, instead he recorded more off book tracks to keep Rose sated. Rapping, playing around with his turn tables, anything to keep him from having to sing _that_ song.

Groaning, the boy lulled his head back. “Seriously? You still want me to sing that? I could’ve sworn we had an agreement that I would sing anything but that.”

“I don’t know why you’re so against this. It’s a lovely song, sure to get an immense amount of publicity from fans. I’ve been getting our crew together for a music video as well, they say that it’s a sure fire hit David. Now stop complaining, you and John need to change and get down to the studio if you want to finish this before it gets too late.” Music video? Are you fucking kidding? He didn’t even want to sing this, much less act it out in an over dramatic video.

John only stood looking at the ground, kicking a rock around. Rose wasn’t amused by Dave’s show of over dramatic emotion. Pushing both of their chests towards the house, walking behind them and stepping on Dave’s heels whenever he started to lag.

Once inside the house, Dave walked up the steps to the second level where his room was. He pushed open the door and immediately walked over to his bed where he fell face first into the plush fabrics of his blankets and pillows. He could have laid there forever, but he knew he had to move. It was only fair really, Rose did really want to get those sponsors and even if it wasn’t technically responsible for what happened, he would be the one to deal with it. His cousin did a lot for him, handling the business part of being a super star wasn’t easy, and he appreciated it greatly. It was only fair that he did his share of work, sometimes making money couldn’t be all fun and pranks sadly.

Dave pushed himself off his bed, afraid to get it anymore wet. He dug up another pair of jeans, a short sleeved broken record tee, socks, and a burgundy red hoody which he unzipped over his broken record tee. He toweled off his still damp hair and combed it to the side in front of the mirror, momentarily taking off his shades to clean them. Before putting them back on, he looked at himself briefly. His eyes shined blood red in the light, it wasn’t acceptable to wear shades in music videos, and sometimes concert or interview so he had to wear contacts. When he was picking what color to use for the contacts his friends that knew his eye color recommended blue, Dave had opted out for a darker gray though. He always had wanted eyes that didn’t stand out, gray seemed like the perfect option. No offense to naturally gray eyed people, but he wanted a duller color.

Slipping his glasses back on, he walked out of his bathroom and bedroom descending the stairs in quick practiced steps. John was chatting with Rose excitedly next to the door, they both had changed, John must have grabbed some spare clothes from god knows where, seriously, he had no idea where Egbert got all this shit when this wasn’t even _his_ house. He had a blue tee and light colored baggy jeans, Rose adorned a simple, pink, long sleeved dress that ended at her knees, and lightly reapplied makeup that included her infamous black lipstick.

“Did you have tea with the queen of England while getting dressed? My god, let’s just get going.” Lalonde, turned towards the door, opening it and walking quickly towards her car. John jogging behind her to catch up.

“SHOTGUN MOTHER TRUCKERS!!”

“Bro, I’m literally your boss I will fire your ass if you don’t let me sit shotgun.”

“Daaaaave that’s not fair.” John whined stopping to look at Strider, who only walked in front of him and slid into the front seat.

“Tough shit dude.” John mimicked Dave mockingly, “What was that? Did you forget your car seat or something?”

“Shoulda taken my car.” Rose smirked at this, putting the car into drive and heading away from the neighborhood. They drove in silence, Rose turning the radio on to listen to the growing phenomenon that was the stupid prissy celebrity event that was so elegantly fucked over by Egbert. He would have laughed at all the articles if Rose wasn’t in the car.

They arrived at the studio 30 minutes later, they walked silently into the one leveled brick building. The building its self was outdated, inside was comfortable and new though. Smooth wooden flooring and new aged furniture greeted Dave when he walked in. The studio was most likely empty, save his actual producer.

“Well look what the cat dragged in.” Speak of the devil. Cronus Ampora. His producer in the flesh. Didn’t even send Meenah to overview it this time, ain’t he lucky.

Dave didn’t bother answering. Cronus was a cool dude, in a ‘wanna-be-greaser-kind’ of way. His hair gelled back, the old leather jacket and ripped jeans, he was a smoker, occasionally smoking in the studio. He was thoroughly scolded by Rose whenever she caught him, so he often just opted to going out behind the studio when she was around.

The trio (plus the greaser jackass) set up actual studio and get everything ready for the actually recording session. When everything was ready, the blonde entered the claustrophobics nightmare, climbing up to sit on the stool. It was more like an adult high chair with how tall it was.

The lyrics were set on the table beside him, not that he needed them. Even after all this time he still knew all the lyrics by heart, he did write them after all. Even if he wrote them years ago.

“Okay, were ready whenever you are.” John said through the speakers, distracted as he played with the multiple buttons and levers in front of him. Dave nodded solemnly, putting the headphones on and waiting for the music. When it started, the boy wished it hadn’t. Strider had written this back in college for Jade. No one knew this of course, Rose had just found it while she was cleaning out one of his old school folders. To be fair, she hadn’t known that he wrote it _for_ Jade. There was no mentions of what she looked like or what they did together, it was basically just a sappy love poem. It still brought up memories and unwanted feelings, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

The session was quick, but left Dave feeling somber and empty.

“Dave, you wanna go drop off Kar- Karcate? Whatever that dudes name is, do you wanna drop his jacket off at the dry cleaners on the way to my house?”

“John, what makes you think I’m going to drive you all the way back to your house.” Rose said as she got into the driver’s seat.

“Rooooose, there’re so many weird people on bart though. Pleeeeeeease?” John pleaded at Rose, who just shrugged not really caring weather she had to take John home as well as Dave before finally driving home herself. If she was going to take them to the dry cleaners as well, that meant they would have to drop by Dave’s house to grab the jacket in the first place… Wait…

“SHIT” John visibly jumped and Rose flinched veering a bit on the road.

“MY GOD DAVE WHAT THE FUCK!?”John exclaimed clutching his heart dramatically.

“Yes cousin, what he said.” Rose said shifting her eyes toward Dave momentarily before returning them to the road.

“I FUCKING FORGOT HIS JACKET IN THE CAB. SHIT I’M SO FUCKED.” Fucked he definitely was.

John broke out laughing, Rose only arced her eye brow at Dave’s mini freak out. Seriously, he lost the ball of angers jacket. What did a ball of anger look like angry? Was it like double negative? Maybe he was nice when someone makes him angry… Wishful thinking.

“I’m sorry am I missing something here?” Rose said quizzically.

“Dave forgot his boyfriend’s suit jacket in the taxi!”

“Shut the fuck up Egbert! You saw that gremlin angry! He shoved a fucking _tie_ down your _pants.”_ Egbert shut up at that, Rose choked on her spit.

“He’s someone I met at the gathering, because of Mr. I’m-such a-great-fucking-prankster here, his suit jacket was screwed so I offered to dry clean it for him, buT I FUCKING FORGOT IT IN THE CAB.”

The rest of the ride with John and Rose was spent figuring out if they could get the jacket back, of course since Egbert was in the car it was mostly all just kicks and giggles. Now as Lalonde drove away, he was brought back to the point of how fucking fucked he was. Well, might as well tell the giant/not so giant gremlin now. Rip the band aid off. More like, let me put a salt colored band aid on a huge ass burn then rip it off immediately after.

Sighing, Dave pulled out his phone as he headed upstairs.

TG: yo, this Carcat?

CG: IT’S KARKAT JACKASS, WHO IS THIS?

TG: Its Dave

TG: whats with the caps?

TG: bro, you cant possibly be mad already

TG: unless you are a mindreading across the city mind reading villain

TG: in which case, yes I guess you have the right to be mad

CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU RAMBLE OVER PHONE EVEN WORSE THAN IN PERSON. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT SHIT WAS FUCKING POSSIBLE. JUST SHUT YOUR ACIDIC WASTE SHOOT FOR 5 SECONDS WOULD YOU.

CG: DID YOU DRYCLEAN MY “HANDKERCHEIF” YET DIPSHIT.

TG: um yea about that

TG: I may or may not of left it in a taxi

TG: but its okay ive got it handled

TG: okay that’s a lie youre probably never getting it back.

CG: ARE YOU

CG: FUCKING

CG: KIDDING ME

CG: HOW DAFT CAN YOU BE I TOLD YOU SPECIFICALLY *NOT* TO LOSE THAT GOD DAMN JACKET

CG: WHAT DO YOU DO?

CG: YOU FUCKING

CG LOSE IT

TG: look dude, im really sorry about that,

TG: like, that song to late to apologize?

TG: that shit was written for me

TG: this shit is serious

TG: seriously though ill pay you back for it

CG: HOLY FUCK SHUT UP

CG: YA KNOW WHAT?

CG: I DON’T WANT YOUR MONEY, YOU JUST OWE ME.

TG: fuck dude

TG: you know how ominous that sounds?

TG: like

TG: are you going to ask me to bury a dead body?

TG: i dunno

TG: but ill have to do it because I lost your cheap ass suit jacket

CG: HOLY SHIT JUST STOP

CG: IF I READ ANYMORE OF YOUR INCIPID RED WORDS I THINK I MAY SHOOT MYSELF

CG: BYE FUCKER

TG: youre not going to make me bury a dead body right?

TG: hello?

TG: come one man don’t leave me hangin

 

Dave fell back onto his bed, looking at the clock on his bedside table. 9 o’clock. Huh, time flies when your freaking out about gremlin jackets. It was early but Dave was really fucking tired. Being emotionally constipated and saving cute balls of fury- damn it there’s that word again, _cute._ You know what, he was way too tired to become even more emotionally confused and constipated than he already was.

Groggily, the blonde undressed into his boxers and ungracefully flung himself onto his bed for the second time that day. This time, he managed to fall into a deep and unperturbed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ive had some problems at home, I know that no excuse for not writing for so fucking long, but to be fair ive been writing bit by bit and then had a spurge tonight. I have no idea when the next chapter will be up, but ive got it planned and set up so hopefully with in a few weeks. Thank you for being so patient love you guys <3<3<3


	8. Ruined

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY HOLY SHIT I UPDATED AHHHHHH. Honestly I don't know when I'll be able to update again because school and other activities is a bitch, but i'll try and i will get it out eventually!!! This chapter is longer then my other ones so that's good and we are starting to get more stuff going on that's actually interesting. If there are mistakes please go easy on me! I've been adding onto it at 10-12 every night for a few days so its late and I'm tired XD. I do want to know the grammar errors asap so i can fix them though! Okay, yay im back <3<3<3

The sunset would have been much prettier if his mind was clear like the current sky above, instead it was clouded and gray with confusion and anger. That much wasn’t new, the beautiful sunset wasn’t new, the clear skies? That was new. Karkat wished he could admire it but his head was crowded and cluttered with lesser things that made it no place for such beauty. Instead he stared blankly at the raging waters of the bay, the boy liked that no matter what the weather was the water was still plagued with endless waves and dark water. He thought that it was quite an accurate depiction of life. The back-round noise could be the most beautiful opera but what was happening right then and there made everything in the back-round insignificant and sad.

The dinging of a phone interrupted his deep thoughts. Fishing the old iphone out of his pocket he looked at the message. It was a random number, but what really caught his attention was the random asshat spelled his name wrong. Not to toot his own horn, but he was fucking famous and literally had the easiest name to spell ever. Do you really think that the words car and cat are actually spelled correctly? Would you ever name your child fucking beep-beep meow? No, get it right. Some things are not spelled exactly how they sound.

Angry at the misspelling, Karkat answered the douche nozzle.

TG: yo, this Carcat?

CG: IT’S KARKAT JACKASS, WHO IS THIS?

TG: Its Dave

TG: whats with the caps?

TG: bro, you cant possibly be mad already

TG: unless you are a mindreading across the city mind reading villain

TG: in which case, yes I guess you have the right to be mad

CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU RAMBLE OVER PHONE EVEN WORSE THAN IN PERSON. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT SHIT WAS FUCKING POSSIBLE. JUST SHUT YOUR ACIDIC WASTE SHOOT FOR 5 SECONDS WOULD YOU.

CG: DID YOU DRYCLEAN MY “HANDKERCHEIF” YET DIPSHIT.

TG: um yea about that

TG: I may or may not of left it in a taxi

TG: but its okay ive got it handled

TG: okay that’s a lie youre probably never getting it back.

CG: ARE YOU

CG: FUCKING

CG: KIDDING ME

CG: HOW DAFT CAN YOU BE I TOLD YOU SPECIFICALLY *NOT* TO LOSE THAT GOD DAMN JACKET

CG: WHAT DO YOU DO?

CG: YOU FUCKING

CG LOSE IT

TG: look dude, im really sorry about that,

TG: like, that song to late to apologize?

TG: that shit was written for me

TG: this shit is serious

TG: seriously though ill pay you back for it

CG: HOLY FUCK SHUT UP

CG: YA KNOW WHAT?

CG: I DON’T WANT YOUR MONEY, YOU JUST OWE ME.

TG: fuck dude

TG: you know how ominous that sounds?

TG: like

TG: are you going to ask me to bury a dead body?

TG: i dunno

TG: but ill have to do it because I lost your cheap ass suit jacket

CG: HOLY SHIT JUST STOP

CG: IF I READ ANYMORE OF YOUR INCIPID RED WORDS I THINK I MAY SHOOT MYSELF

CG: BYE FUCKER

The jackass lost his fucking jacket. Kanaya was going to beat him, he could hear her already, “Well, you should not have given your jacket to a stranger, even if his intentions were good. Good intentions pave the road to hell.” Jeez she loved her stupid little proverbs.

His phone buzzed a couple more times, but he wasn’t interested in anything else Strider had to say. Instead he continued to look at the raging waters, after a few more minutes the boy finally got up from his perch on the railing and climbed over and back onto the roof. Karkat often went up to the roof of his tenement, at first he was to chicken to perch on the railing even if it was 3 feet thick. Now days he found himself there more often than not. Kanaya would disapprove of the dangerous seating, it was pretty high up, some-where around 17 floors he would guess. His flat was at the top, the only one with 2 floors.  This meant that he had instant access to the roof, even taking to rent it out after a while.

 It was nice up there and his surrounding were beautiful, the summer days that he took his easel and paints up there were his favorite days. Sadly, there were very few days that it was nice enough to do that. Living just outside the San Francisco peninsula meant he got all of the cold ocean fronts, winds, and rain. Though he moved to San Francisco just for this kind of weather, it seemed anticlimactic not to use his surroundings to paint when it was just so perfect. Yet another reason he had moved from dull old Wyoming.

San Francisco hadn’t been his first choice if he was being honest, he wanted to leave the country all together. Go somewhere like Italy, investigate his roots. Back then, he was a minor though, graduating a year early isn’t always a good thing. The foster home he had been in was cruelly run, they were happy to get him out of there but paying for it was out of the question. Getting a passport was out of the question. Giving him a car was out of the question. They were prepared to kick him out even if technically he was still a minor. So Karkat got himself a full ride to California College of the Arts, using his meager savings he got a ratty apartment which had shared with 2 others, smack dab in the middle of San Fran.

The foster home had been “courteous” enough to pay for the plane ride over and give him 200 dollars. “All they could spare” like hell, the couple that ran the place had a 3 story mansion on a who-knows-how-many acre piece of land. Of that huge piece of land and house, Karkat and his 13 foster brothers and sisters were crammed in crappily refurbished barn. The upstairs had thread bare flooring that had sustained 7 holes that were hammered back together while he was there.

The top floor was for the boys and the bottom for the girls and every day the boys had to wait till anyone changing down there was done before coming down or coming in and going up. They had a strict shower schedules enforced by the older kids, Karkat remembered when it wasn’t enforced and all hell broke loose. Every mourning an immensely large platter half filled with burnt bacon and the other half filled with soggy scrambled eggs was put out. It was a dog eat dog world in that shit hole.

As soon as he got accepted into college he packed a duffle bag with his sad amount of clothing, his small collection of books he had built up, and all of his journals (12 in total, 11 filled) and left. Things started looking up after his first year of college, already contracted with a publishing company and one book published. When he graduated two years later 2 of his books had become best sellers. His rise to stardom was quick and easy, earning him criticism from older authors. He was the new kid on the block, inevitably his fame would dimmer down and they wouldn’t have to complain anymore, even if everything in his first year of college hadn’t been fun and games.

Karkat walked somberly to the stairwell, the sun had gone down and darkness pushed on him, only the distant lights of the bay bridge and the city to light his path. Suddenly the boy stopped, doing a 360 turn to look at the city. He couldn’t count how many times he had painted it in the day but… What about the night? Karkat took off at a run for his flat, scurrying around and making a mess as he searched for his camera. When he finally found it, he ran like a bat out of hell back to the roof. Taking a few seconds to breathe and stop his hands from shaking, he lifted the Canon camera and started to take pictures.

Well over an hour and 50 perfectionist worthy pictures later, Karkat traveled back down the stairwell, tripping 3 times because of how entranced he was as he looked at the camera. Sure he had lived _in_ San Fran, but it couldn’t compare to _looking at it from the outside._ Stumbling into the flat he began to prepare all that he needed to paint. 5 pencils and a mechanic sharpener, a palette that he had next to his pencils, a 4 foot by 6 foot canvas set up awkwardly on 2 easels, and all this set against the blank white wall(paint splattered, but scrubbed at) next to the stairs leading to the second floor. Just above the wall was the railing so you could look down at the first level from upstairs.

After putting the large thick plastic on the ground on a 10 by 10 space around him (so at least his floor wasn’t subjected to the paint massacre (not that it hadn’t anyway)) the boy printed and pinned 20 of his favorite photos he had taken on the wall. Wearing only a white tank top covered almost completely with dim paint that had been through the wash, and blue baggy jeans that weren’t looking much better, he stepped back and examined his work space envisioning what he was going to do with the canvas.

Glancing at the clock, Karkat sighed inwardly as he realized it was 11 o’clock and his night had just began. He needed caffeine for this. Quickly maneuvering through his mostly baron kitchen, he started the cup of coffee and went back to his canvas. He grabbed a pencil and as a second thought, put a rule next to his things as well. Then he started.

The hours ticked by and his coffee pot sat forgotten in his kitchen, Karkat was barely aware of the world around him. He often got like this while he painted, out of it and oblivious to reality. It was like the painting drew him in, put him in the world he was creating, made him want to make where he was beautiful.

It was 2 in the mourning and he finally finished the sketched pencil outline. His coffee was cold. He was tired.

The boy sluggishly walked over to the pot of coffee and dumped it into the sink, starting a new one. He walked to his palette and started to organize the paints on the surface. He set out all of his brushes on the floor on the other side of him, before looking at the extensive collection in front of him. He simply stared at them all in a silent debate for 5 minutes before the coffee was ready. Grabbing a mug and the whole pot, he walked back to his area and placed the pot a safe distance away from everything else. Karkat sat quietly drinking his coffee as he debated over what brushes to use. After pouring his second cup he started to pick and choose his brushes.

When the coffee pot was empty, he had narrowed down his immensely large collection of brushes to 15, carefully choosing one, he dipped the tip in paint, and put the first stroke of color on the canvas.

4 hours later it was 7 o’clock and he _was running out of paint._ He was starting to freak the FUCK OUT. Theoretically, he could use different paint colors to replace the ones he was running out of, but that was never an option. His perfectionism always got in the way of improvising, really it was actually quite annoying to even him, but the few times he had tried improvising for problems like this, it always left him feeling like there was an itch he couldn’t scratch. Every now and then he physically _couldn’t_ look at whatever it was that pissed him off so bad, without having a minor or major panic attack.

This happened before. It pissed off Feferi because the painting he had done was _good_ and a fucking _commission._ He had used a couple differently shaded purples, blues, and greens. Some of his brush strokes had been off, and the picture in general just hadn’t been what he wanted it to be. He freaked the fuck out.

AKA, he threw a chair at the painting. It was completely ripped and he had to repaint it _correctly_ in 2 days. Karkats commissions usually took 2 weeks to 2 months depending on the project.

Sighing, the boy put a palm on his head and rubbed it. This was an unusual habit he picked up due to the fact that most of the time he had paint on his hands. His favorite paint place wasn’t open till 9, and even if it was open he was not going to put effort into showering and dressing only to come back and get dirty again. It left one choice. Figure out how to last his paint till 9, and then get someone to get _him_ some paint.

30 minutes later, Karkat found himself rummaging through the kitchen cabinets and even the refrigerator for anything he could use as paint. He left the kitchen, arms full with mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, and a couple other foods and sauces he could use as paint.

By 8:30 he was running out of the sauces.

Desperate, Karkat quickly washed off his hands, (the boy often got irritated with the brushes when he couldn’t get the strokes how he wanted them) and resorted to searching through his phone. He called Feferi first, the call went to voicemail, explaining that she was in a meeting at the moment. He had always found it peculiar that Feferi changed her voicemail to say why she wouldn’t be able to answer at a given time, but it was useful now and then.

He briefly considered calling Eridan, but quickly realized that the douche was either still asleep and not waking any time soon, or in the same meeting as Feferi. Kanaya was next, she picked up on the third ring and Karkat could’ve kissed her for it.

“Karkat, why are you calling me at this time?” Her voice was confused and mildly surprised that he was even out of bed.

“Um, I need a favor.”

“Darling, you know I would just love to go on one of your adventurous chores right now, but I’m afraid that I have a fitting in just a few minutes.” FUUUUUUUUUCK

“Fuuuuuuuuck, okay whatever. Thanks anyway Kan.”

“You really shouldn’t swear as much as you do and I hope you can get your chore done. Goodbye dear.”

“Bye.” Karkat ended the call and repeatedly hit his head against his kitchen counter.

His phone was just about baron of anyone else that would be willing and able to go down to a paint store and buy him shit. He sure as hell wasn’t calling spider bitch, Nepeta no doubt was already at work, Sollux would just laugh in his face and tell him to deal with it, and Gamzee was probably high off his ass, and would just get purple “miracle” paints.

He scrolled hopelessly through his phone reading all the names on his contact list (sadly enough, that actually didn’t require scrolling) for utmost time. Angry and annoyed, the boy threw his phone onto the couch 20 feet from him, he paced around the kitchen counter for a few moments before giving in for the time being and marching over to the couch. He was about to plop down onto his couch when he realized he was still covered in paint. Was the universe so against him that he couldn’t even have the small relief of sitting on his couch? He made a note to go flip off the universe later today.

The boy sat himself on his coffee table (probably one of the only things in his apartment that couldn’t be painted on, he could still draw on it though) leaning down to the floor to grab the remote to his 50 inch TV, turning it on reluctantly. He was eager to get his mind off the fact that he would have to wait another thirty minutes before he could even get his paints. Probably longer before he could keep painting.

The TV blinked to life to one of Karkat’s many movie channels. To his great disappointment, his romcoms weren’t playing at the moment, instead it was a rerun of some concert. The boy sighed, he never watched this channel during the day, so that was probably why he was unaware that it showed this kinda shit during daylight hours.

He was about to move onto an apparently more reliable channel, when he realized just what concert it was. A Dave Strider was singing along with the tune, slipping about the stage in odd dance moves that looked choreographed and spastic. He sang a song Karkat didn’t know, but he was vaguely aware that for the most part, aside from the chorus, was mostly a rap. Huh, that was new. This douche nozzle pop star rapped? From what he could tell he wasn’t bad at it either, it wasn’t like when Taylor Swift tried to rap, ending up in a sad, sad impersonation of Nicki Minaj. The dude was actually good at it.

Briefly taken aback, Karkat finally left his thoughts about the blonde beach boy and started looking through the menu for channels. His finger hovered above the select button when genius struck. Okay so even more genius struck, he was obviously already a genius. He had Dave’s number, not only that, but that sack of coat losing shit owed him a motherfucking favor. The boy’s inner evil laughed maniacally. Oh whoops he forgot that his inner evil was his whole entire being, and now he was laughing maniacally to himself, whatever he lived alone.

The short boy all but lunged at his phone, scrolling through his list of recent contacts until he found Dave. He mentally high fived himself before slamming a thumb down on the call button and holding the phone to his ear. The prick picked up on the last ring, causing anxiety to swell up in Karkat’s chest before deflating all at once making him angrier than he already was.

“Who the actual fuck is calling me at this ungodly hour” His voice was groggy and unexcited. He had a few ideas how to fix that. The boy hung up his phone and ran up to his study scrambling about for a few seconds before finding what he needed. Karkat quickly found Dave’s number again and dialed.

“What the fuck do you-” The brunette covered an ear.

“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKK”

“HOLY MOTHER FUCKING DICK SHIT, WHAT THE ACTUAL SATANS ASSHOLE WAS THAT.”

Karkat laughed. He laughed so fucking hard.

“YOU AWAKE NOW DIPSHIT? GOOD GET THE FUCK UP, TIME TO TURN IN THAT FAVOR.”

“Karkat? Dude, what the actual fuck did I do to deserve the devil’s sex noise in my fucking ear.” He sounded like a confused six year old asking why their crayon broke, it was hilarious.

“You introduced yourself.”

“Bro that was cold, like, so cold it could’ve frozen over that little piece of hell where that sound came from. It would freeze it and then the frozen bits of demons would fall off and roll down the hell road like a fucking tumbleweed.”

“Oh my fucking god, shut that asinine garbage spewing hole in your face for five seconds before I blow off your god forsaken listening flap of an ear again.”

“What the fuck was that noise anyway?”

“An air horn.”

“Why in the name of anything with ears do you have an air horn?”

“That’s completely beside the point of this conversation.”

“The point being?”

“I’m cashing in the favor you owe me, I need paint.”

“First of all, I never agreed to any of this ‘favor’ shit, and second of all, why the hell do you think I have paint, and why do you even need it?”

“I don’t think you have paint dipshit, I think you have money and time, which is what you need to get me my fucking paint. Oh and what do you think I could use paint for other than painting you insipid piece of steaming shit?”

“I dunno, vandalizing, gang tags, kinky-”

“SHUT IT RIGHT THERE ASSHOLE, IF YOU SAY ANYTHING ELSE I WILL LITERALLY COME OVER THERE AND RIP THAT ACIDIC TOUNGE OF YOURS OUT.”

“Yea, yea whatever crabby-kat. So you want me to go get paint. Well I’m gonna need a bit more information to go off of then that if I even consider doing this crap.”

“I’m texting you the address of the store and my apartment now so shut up and be here in 45 minutes with the list of paints I will also so graciously provide you with. See you later asshat, you better fucking get here in time otherwise I will find you, tear off your balls and serve them to you on a platter before ruthlessly shoving them down your throat.”

Karkat clicked the end call button before he could hear anymore of Strider’s stupid voice in his ear. Pulling up his text log he quickly typed out the needed addresses and paint colors.

TG: you cant be fucking serious its too early for this crap

CG: IM ABOUT AS SERIOUS AS THE BUTCHERS KNIFE AND PLATTER SITTING ACROSS FROM ME. FUCKING GO FASTER DIPSHIT.

TG: alright alright I’m going

Throwing his phone onto the couch, the boy walked over to his pinned up pictures and grabbed one. Carefully, he laid down on his back in front of the canvas and studied the photo, making sure to soak in every single detail he could. He glanced back and forth between the painting in progress and the photo, looking for small mistakes and details that could be bettered. The painting so far was beautiful, but Karkat liked to make it as perfect as he could, often repainting the same thing over again up to 5-6 times. For this one, he might only repaint it once or twice.

He lost himself in thought of the photo and canvas and when he had finally regained consciousness of his surroundings, 30 minutes had already passed. He laid the photo on the ground next to him and traded his focus on the painting, to the ceiling. He’d thought about painting the ceiling quite a few times, but every time he looked up, he had no clue what to do with the empty space. Many times he thought about painting Van Gough’s Starry Night, but he feared that it would be an amateur attempt rather than a somewhat adequate representation.

His mind hopped back and forth about things until he was suddenly pulled out by the ring of a door bell. Karkat hopped to his feet and renewed the scowl on his face before walking over to the door.

He opened the door with haste and instantly his face brightened at the sight of his paints. Without a thought about the man holding them he snatched the bags and cans then trotted over to the canvas to where he had all them laid out.

“Oh and what am I? Chop Liver?” A sarcastic tone sounded, Karkat chose to ignore this and start laying out his paints.

“Dude you got some nice digs, but it’s empty as the devils heart in here.” Striders annoying voice went off again like an alarm. Maybe if he said something to appease the beast it would go away.

“I only have what I need fuck face. Some people aren’t hoarders eager to spend every cent of money they have.” He didn’t even look at the other as he spoke, opting out to instead start opening the new paints. Sweet lord did he love hat new paint smell.

“I’m sorry, are you implying I’m some sort of hoarder? Well crab cakes, I’m truly wounded, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“Oh my fucking god, your ass must be jealous of all the shit coming out of your mouth.”

Foot steps paced across the floor of the apartment. Why the fuck was he still in his apartment?

“Why in God’s name are you still here?”

“Cause I’m already out of bed and even worse, out of the house, might as well stay and see how the painting finishes up.” A plop. Did that asshat just sit on his couch?

Finally the brunette turned around, to indeed find Strider laying legs crossed on his couch. Dipshit even had the audacity to not take off his shoes, on his clean white fucking couch.

“If you don’t take off your shoes this second I’ll take them off myself and shove them up your ass.”

“Woah there, I’m not into any of that kinky shit.”

“Do you want to know what it feels like to have laces poking your insides?”

Strider grumbled taking his legs begrudgingly off the couch and crouching down to untie and take off his shoes. “Why is everything white anyway?” his voice came out as a mumble while he pulled off his right shoe forcefully.

“I’ll answer that question with another question. Why in fucks sake would I tell you?” Karkat turned back to his painting area and started popping open the tubes and gallons of paint.

Dave shrugged as he kicked his feet back up onto the couch and crossed his arms behind his head.

“Ugh I’m not going to baby sit you while you’re here, if you want to stay then go right the fuck ahead. Just don’t distract me and don’t get anything dirty dipshit.” The small boy was tired and impatient, if this half-witted popstar wanted to stay in his apartment and wait to get bored enough to blow his fucking brains out (and if he was lucky he would), fine whatever. He didn’t care, it was more effort to kick him out then it was really worth.

“Oh Strider once again you hit the ladies with your persuasive charm and good looks.” The blonde’s voice was more annoying each time he heard it.

“If you don’t shut your god forsaken waste shoot, I will throw you out a window, go down to where you landed and personally shove the glass shards into your throat.”

“Jesus are you fussy, just get back to your painting” Karkat heard the T.V. flicker on but he decided to just ignore it because holy fuck he just wanted to paint, not prattle with a Justin Bieber wanna-be.

Hours started to tick by, Karkat barely noticed though. Only focusing on the stroke of his brush, the details of the photograph, and finding the perfect colors. He loved being in this state. The state of blank minded determination, of being thoughtless and feeling like a God creating his own little world. Of course all good things come to an end don’t they? This particularly shitty end came from a blond dipshit.

“Yo Karks, why does it smell like a bad attempt at a sandwich in here?” Karkat’s hand stilled mid stroke. His face reddened as he swirled around to face Strider.

“I-I ran out of paint to use fuckass! You know what it’s none of your business what _my_ flat smells like, keep your damned nose to yourself!”

 He wasn’t quite sure as to why he got so worked up over the fact that he _may_ of used some kitchen materials in the place of paint. Then again, he tended to always be defensive of his paintings, one of the reasons he never on any occasion went to gallery showings. He stopped after some idiot called one of his favorite pieces ‘cliché’ and Karkat ‘accidentally’ kneed him in the nuts.

“Dude, are you saying you used fucking **condiments** as paint?” Dave’s eyebrows raised above his stupid fucking shades. Who wears sun glasses in doors anyway? Seriously what the fuck?

Karkat only blushed harder and turned away grumbling something about “Whatever works dipshit” and went back to painting. He could hear Stri-douche laughing at his back.

“So basically I could eat your painting? Like, could we hang it up in a Deli and use it for advertising? I can see it now, people would line the streets just to get a look at the world’s only sandwich flavored edible painting.” The boy refused to respond to that and opting to focus on his painting again instead.

The hours passed like minutes for Karkat, his blond acquaintance however was having a hard time doing anything other than move around a lot and loudly commentate whatever it was he was watching. It was driving the boy up the wall and out the motherfucking window at this point. Somehow, he found the power in himself to ignore it and continue his tedious work.

A small brush that was thinner than a pencil was posed in his hand, a tiny smear of paint carefully set on the paper thin end, his hand carefully positioned in front of the canvas. His breaths had to be even, his hand had to be steady. A single bad stroke could take this painting from being number 1 to being number 1000. Though he often had to do this in his paintings, he hated this part. He liked to use huge brushes and just splatter paint, but it wasn’t often that he had the opportunity to do that and make something he actually liked. So instead he was stuck with this.

Taking a final steadying breath, the dark haired boy slowly but surely lowered the brush, Karkat watched carefully as it neared and neared the canvas until it was just a hair away-

“YOOOOOOOO KARKS DID YOU KNOW THAT BRUCE JENNER IS GETTING A SEX CHANGE?” The small boy let out a surprised squeal and swung around narrowly missing the canvas. He took a breath and then fully registered what had just happened, this mother fucking ass licker just interrupted one of _the_ most important parts of his painting. Karkat threw his paint brush at the blond monstrosity.

Dave leaned back against the couch in the bat of an eye to avoid getting hit by the brush then skillfully stuck out a hand and caught it without missing a beat. The other boy might have been impressed had he not been fuming with anger. He paced back and forth in front of his painting, hands pulling at dark already tangled locks.

“WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY ABOUT DISTRACTING ME?!”

“Uuuh, not to do it?”

“AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW YOU MASSIVE FUCKING DIPSHIT?”

“No dude, I don’t think you’re grasping this though. Bruce Jenner ain’t gonna be Bruce Jenner anymore. His name is fucking Caitlyn Jenner and he’s a she now. Like holy shit I don’t know about you, but I didn’t think the Kardashian family could get any more interesting.”

“NO DUDE, I DON’T THINK _YOU’RE_ GRASPING THAT I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT THE GOD FORESAKEN KARDASHIAN FAMILY OR THAT AN OLYMPIAN IS CHANGING THEIR FUCKING GENDER. **I JUST WANT TO FINISH MY PAINTING.** ”

“But like, what do you think Kim K’s gonna do about it?”

“UGUUUUGUGUHUHUGH.”

Karkat banged his head against the neared wall for 10 seconds as Dave just watched stone faced as always. His head was starting to hurt and the lack of sleep started to catch up to him, he silently agreed to himself that he needed a cup of coffee. Or 3. He marched past the lounging douchebag whom had already turned his attention back to the television, and into the kitchen.

Grabbing a mug basically the size of the coffee pot itself, he began the process of making a no sugar, no cream, no milk, no anything, cup of coffee. At the moment he needed his coffee as black as his soul.

“Karks make me a cup too.” Karkat wanted to laugh. There was no way in hell he was making that piece of cat shit a cup of coffee. Ever.

“I would sooner cut off my thumb and shove it up my ass then make you a cup of coffee.”

“Damn, well that’s just gross. Where do you get this stuff from? Do you like just sit in your room some days and make shitty and disgusting insults and comebacks? Is there like a book you have that you read over and over so you just know every page from the top of your head?”

The dark haired boy just rolled his eyes, giving up on talking to the blond hipster and returning his attention to the brew that would be ready soon. Just as he thought, only a minute later the machine dinged at him signaling the much needed caffeine was ready. After pouring himself a generous amount into the already large mug, the boy carefully walked back to view his painting so far.

It was halfway painted in, the other side still unpainted with only rough pencil outlining. So far though, he was immensely impressed with how it was turning out, finding it significantly easier to create the shadowing for the city at night rather than during the day. Somehow, it was also a bit harder. So many lights and colors have to be placed on the building to portray that the city is never truly asleep just like its sister city New York.

The small brunette stared at the painting for longer then he’d like to admit. Finishing his coffee and resigning to chewing on the end of a small paint brush. In hind sight, he really should have been an art critic rather than an artist. His critiquing skills were probably some of the best in the world, ironically, that probably would of gotten him shut down as well because he judged every little thing far too harshly.

Glancing at the clock he realized it was already 2 pm, not that he particularly cared about the time, but it still surprised him to know just how long he had been working so intently. His mind and body were almost ready to get back to work when the pile of horse shit with glasses on top, started talking again. Did he ever stop?

“Are you ever going to tell me why everything in here is white?” Karkat’s original plan to shout off anything strider wanted to say died on his tongue. Something about the way the other slightly tilted his head, curiosity set on his face in a way that was so subtle, only an artist’s eye could spot it.

“I paint most of the things I own. I tend to sell the things after a while and get new white ones to start over with something new again. I’ve painted all my walls beside anything tile at least once. Sold 4 sofas, 2 love seats, and more lamp shades then I can count. I also the tables for pencil sketching.” Karkat stated this in a clear voice that sounded nowhere near as shy as he looked. His face was tilted down and his line of vision was clearly focused on the ground as he talked, turning around swiftly after he was done.

“Why isn’t anything painted right now?”

“I restarted very recently.” Karkat was already picking up a few brushes and getting started again.

“I thought you were a writer, you’re famous for your books, not your art.” Karkat sighed and shook his head.

“People don’t want art anymore. They want something they can understand clearly. Something where the emotions someone wants you to feel are handed to you. Paintings aren’t like that, they’re meant to make you think or look in awe. The public eye isn’t interested in that anymore.” The sadness tinged his voice a little more than he intended it to, but he couldn’t help it. Going into artistry had been his dream until the cruel reality that you can’t do what you want unless you have money came into view. Not that he didn’t like writing, he loved it. His fondness for drawing and painting though was always somehow different though.

They went back into a silence, Dave narrating every once in a while, Karkat cursing under his breath when he wasn’t sure about something. It was comfortable, far more so then it had been before. It felt as if they came to some mutual understanding, knew where the boundaries of whatever kind of relationship this was sat. Neither of them thought time could go by any faster but it did, it seemed the world tended to thrive off of harmony as well.

 Soft footsteps suddenly broke the small boys painting trance, drawing his attention to the present matter. Stri-douche was going up the stairs. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if there weren’t personal things upstairs, but oh wait look at that, there was private shit on that floor.

“The fuck are you doing?” Karkats voice was that of a teacher scolding a small child for trying to sneak away from timeout.

“What does it look like? I’m going upstairs, I wanna know what’s up there. I’m like a fucking cat, can’t be held down, always moving, scratch your face off with these claws of molten amazing.” The blond didn’t even have the guts to turn around, just kept walking up the goddamn steps.

“Curiosity killed the cat you dumb fucker.”

“Nah yo, that shits a lie. Curious George ain’t dead, so why should I believe the metaphorical cat is dead? It probably was just some old man telling his daughter that it was the cat’s fault he was hit by the car, not that he was the one who hit the damned thing. ‘Yes, um, curiosity killed Fluffy, I didn’t hit him with my Toyota’”

“Holy mother of everything with sanity, can you please shut your fucking mouth and never open it again?” Karkat was reaching his maximum annoyance level.

“Sorry Karkitty, no can do. I got to many serenades to sing with this mouth. Dude listen to thi-“ No, he was not going to listen to anything, so instead he threw paint at the other boys face. Hitting him dead center back of his head as he walked down the row doors.

Dave slowly brought his hand to the back of his head and touched the wet blue paint. “Oh it’s on now you little paint slut.”

Strider bolted down the stairs taking the steps 3 at a time, favoring jumping over the railing to the floor when he reached the landing. The smaller of them prepared himself as quick he could, covering his hands in paint, ready to fling it at the considerably taller blond. Strider barreled forwards causing the other to throw the handfuls of paint out of reflex, a handful of red paint made a perfect hit on the others chest. At the hit, he crumpled to the ground clutching his chest.

“I’m wounded! Man down! Get me motherfucking life alert cause’ I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” The pure amount of drama in his voice was downright pathetic, only earning an unamused raised eyebrow from Karkat.

“Just kidding,” with that the real battle began. Dave grabbed a small canister of paint and a brush diving behind the love seat for protection. The other boy stood his ground and readied himself for the attack. The war that ensued was more than words could explain.

Both were down right vicious, using cheaty tricks and unfair advantages (one obviously be the fact that strider was about a foot taller than the other boy). The war lasted for more than an hour, the air was light and lit with laughter even though Karkat was sure there would be complaints from neighbors about cursing later.

The brunette wouldn’t ever voice it out loud, but he was so glad Dave had stayed. The past months were some of the most stressful in his life and the stress release this offered was much needed and appreciated. Vaguely, he thought he might not change his furniture and walls again, just keep it as the paint that was getting splattered absolutely everywhere. Wait, shit, absolutely everywhere…

This thought dawned on him as he had just tackled the blond from behind and smeared hot pink paint all over his hair and neck.

“DUDE DID YOU JUST PAINT MY HAIR?” All Strider got in return was a maniacal laugh as Karkat hopped off his back and started towards his painting.

“Bro, painting a man’s hair is a low blow.” The now pink headed boy walked up the stairs and into the bathroom to check out his new look.

“Good thing you’re not a man then.” Karkat could hear the scoff and silently tallied a point to himself.

The painting had taken just as much damage as the rest of the boy’s belongings. Blotched bits of bright blue, dark red, orange, and dark green scattered the painted canvas. There was barely 6 inches of white left on the side that he hadn’t painted in yet, only so little left… The boy felt confused and conflicted, he should have been angry but for some reason.. He couldn’t sum up the feeling and instead felt a hole where his anger usually was, seemed to start filling in with something akin to excitement.

He didn’t know how long he stood there just looking at it, but next thing he knew Dave’s voice echoed through his jumbled mind.

“Dude, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… We must have not realized it. I’ll get you more paint if you want and you don’t have to pay me back?” He seemed genuinely sorry, but he didn’t need him to apologize or feel remorse because that was the opposite of what Karkat felt.

“Go sit on the couch and keep watching T.V or something. Give me an hour.” He didn’t even look at Strider, not because he was mad, just because he was enchanted and didn’t want to take his eyes off the canvas out of fear it would get up and run away.

“Sure no problem.” The blonds/pinks feet padded toward the couch and the cushions shuffled as he sat down. The next hour was a blur for the brunette, all he could really be sure of was that he finished the painting. The next thing he was sure of was that he picked up his biggest brush and dipped it in pink paint. Finally, he flung his brush back and forth splattering the paint against the back wall and more importantly the painting.

At some point during his paint flinging tirade, Dave had come up behind him and had just started watching. The last color he flung was his personal favorite, bright, bright red. After he had used the color to the extent he wanted to, he threw the brush over his shoulder complete disregard for whatever was behind him. Whatever, being Dave who simply dodged it with a few mumbled curses.

“ _THAT_ MOTHERFUCKER IS FINISHED, AND I MUST SAY IT IS MORE GOOD-LOOKING THEN YOU.” Karkat stuck his thumb over his shoulder as he shouted this to indicate he was talking about Dave.

“Damn, that burns like a fucking flame thrower crabby-cat. But onto the more interesting shit, why did you fuck it up more? And you’re not mad at me? No long rants about ‘never come back into my home again you ignorant painting ruining piece of shit’? Honestly that’s what I would have done, but I’ll take it man, don’t change your mind just ‘cause I’m asking.” The taller boy put his hands up as if he was about to be arrested. Being arrested would probably be better than anger from the shorter of them.

“No dipshit if I was angry you’d be a sidewalk decoration right now and I would be getting my window replaced. I quote on quote ‘fucked it up more’,” He turned to the other and made quotations with his hands,” because I figured if it was going to be ruined it would be ruined on my terms. Besides, I kinda like this better from what I was making it, I mean I love doing it right but I’ve never really done _anything_ like this before and I’d say it was a success.” Karkat shrugged at the last part.

“Well I’d say I like this too. And going back to the ‘on my terms’ comment, are you some kind of control freak cause dude that painting was pretty fucked before you basically made it a multicolored paint popsicle out of it.” The shorter boy’s cheeks reddened.

“N-no I don’t have control issues I just- go fuck yourself with a rake.” He turned to his insults instead of denying it knowing he wouldn’t be able to put up a believable story anyway. Dave laughed.

“Ok, so now that we got that settled like a coffin in the ground. Do you name your paintings? Or is this just gonna be like ‘painting no. 513’ or some numerical shit like that?” They both turned back to just looking at the painting.”

“First of all this would be no. 873, and second of all, yea I do name some of them. Just the ones I really like or am proud of though.”

“You gonna name this one?” Karkat furrowed his eyebrows thinking.

“Yes, I think I will.”

“What’re you gonna name it?” His eyebrows relaxed along with his whole face. The painter licked his lips before answering slowly and deliberately.

“I think I’ll name it,” he paused looking closer, “ ** _Ruined_** ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a lot of back round from Karkat in this one! You'll start to understand why i made his past the way i did later on because trust me most things i do are deliberate and have an effect later on. We also get the setting, San Fran! I chose this because I'm most familiar with this area and I thought it would be a good choice for the direction i plan on taking this in. As for the painting, im sorry if i made it to quick, i tried to make it take a good amount of time (from 11 pm to 7pm) but obviously i cant make everything perfect because i have things planned that will only take up so much time and Dave only has so much free time. COOOOL now that we have a better grip on Karkat its time to meet Dave! Maybe I'll tell you a little about him next! Okay thanks for reading so far (seriously it means a lot to me) and stay amazing <3<3<3


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